Courtesy - Daily News By Namel Weeramuni
It's after a long, long time I saw a fabulously entertaining Sinhala film, in Kosthapal Punyasoma. It's beautifully and very imaginatively crafted and created. From the start to the very end it was really entertaining.
The time spent at the theatre was not felt at all. It is really worth seeing for its superb production as a whole. I must say I could not stop laughing from the beginning to the very finish.
It, at times I found, is burlesque, comical, and seriously a meaningful depiction of the comedic life of society today. The treatment of husbands by the wives is no joke. Is the husband a tool of the wife in present day society because of their sense of equality and acceptance as such? This no doubt a universal feature of womanhood throughout history but perhaps not to the very extent that exist today. In that sense what Udayakantha Warnasuriya depicts is serious and thought provoking.
It's true that he, as the screen writer and director may have had the intention of making his creation a successful commercially an entertaining celluloid only. But to my mind he depicts beyond it and what beyond is the parody of life. It's the serious element that I find in his film. The best example of this is the bride's attitude and behavior who is abducted by a group of muggers on a contract basis arranged by the fiancé of the bride asking for a ransom from her parents, and how that ransom sum turns out to be afar expectations, for her return. The irony is the behavior pattern of the bride at this juncture who parodically suggests the mugging contractors for the doubling of the sum asked for. Though it is parodical in element, is it not the behavioral attitudinal archetype of the present day young generation. This really is an eclipse of social milieu of today albeit Udayakantha perhaps may have created it unconsciously.
It is a very successful commercial venture as well as telling of the present day societal values. It became quite apparent seeing the cinema Hall I saw the film after about three weeks of its release totally to capacity. This is the first time I saw a full audience in a cinema hall since during the last twenty years or more in Sri Lanka.
The film is about the police, thugs, aggressors, drunkards, henpecked husbands and lastly today's children's attitude towards the family and their life. But none of these is real. It's unreal. It's this understanding of the craft of reality and unreality by the script writer cum the director that makes this film great. What I mean is his understanding of satiric burlesque nature of art.
He had really underscored his media to the very utmost. The overall cast is superb and does justice to their parts brilliantly. Nevertheless I cannot refrain from mentioning the performances of Mahendra Perera, Gamini Hettiarchchi, Sriyantha Mendis, or Srinath, and Duleeka Marapana.
Lastly Kosthapal Punyasoma reminds me the films of Danny Kaye and Peter Sellers. It's a film I believe that should not be missed.
