I have previously published an article entitled 'Critical Review on film Alborada'. This is its second part. From the first part, the format of the film was centrally analysed. I decided to write this review after several telephone conversations with some Sri Lankans and especially after email conversations with Dr. Laleen Jayamanne, who lives in Australia, and Dr. Eda Cleary in South Chile. In truth, some of the points mentioned here were included in the first draft of the first review.
Every work of art speaks for itself, whether artistic or not. The grammatical harmony in the composition of the form of a work of art signifies that. Today we have forgotten to decode, understand and enjoy a work of art. That is why we need to expand our knowledge on the craft of cinema.
This does not mean ignoring the profound ideas and expressions expressed by a work of art. In my first review of Alborada, I sought to open my eyes to Alborada for the future artistic films. A work of art has its own form and subject matter. Also, if the form falls, it will be useless to discuss the subject matter.
The film is an art medium that blends visual art, performing arts and high technology primarily. Any work of art projects the various factors behind it. A work of art can speak of the past. Along with political, anthropological ideas, a work of art reveals philosophical fundamentals such as masculinity, feminism, caste oppression, racial superiority, as well as the mentality of its creator.
What we generally call film criticism is more or less an outline of the above. But its formative component values never come up for discussion. Art criticism is not the application of the theoretical and philosophical ideas we like and hold within ourselves. The task of the critic is to bring out what is being said inside the art. Criticism is an art. It has its own set of criteria, methods, and ethical grounds. When they are violated it is not an art of criticism. Criticism must enlighten knowledge and expand the viewer’s art appreciation.
From 1929-1931, at the age of 25, Pablo Neruda served as Ambassador to Chile for two years in Ceylon. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971. He was 67 at that time. During his lifetime, he has produced nearly 50 different types of writings with a large volume of thousands of poems.
Memoirs
Among them, he started writing 'Memoirs' in 1960. That is, when he was 56 years old. ‘Memoirs’ is a record of his past and contemporary affairs as he recalls. When analysing that document, it appears that he was documenting information about his experiences rather than fiction. There is a complaint that he did not write of some things. But like everyone else, he seems to have written what he remembers, and what he likes to remember and on some incidents that he was sensitive about. Neruda has made a confession so as to prove that he had lived. (Confiesoque he vivido)
The documentary quality of his memoirs is well established when examining the writings about his close friend Lionel Wendt, an intellectual as well as an art connoisseur whom he met in Sri Lanka. They also match the information that other writers have written about Wendt.
He also refers to C. F. Winzer, the then Chief Art Inspector of Sri Lanka, as 'my friend Winzer'. What he writes about Winzer is an accurate report. When analysing memoirs it looks like a report on a collection of events rather than a fiction. It reflects his open mind and honest writing.
It consists of 364 printed pages with a large database of information. The incidents that happened in Sri Lanka is mentioned on 11 pages under the chapter ‘The luminous solitude’ (La soleded Luminose) from pages 89-100. Even then he only wrote a little over half a page about the Sakkili girl who came to clean his toilet. (Hardie St. Martin translation, Penguin Books).
The Alborada film is based on just a few incidents from these 11 pages. Its culmination is the incident that happened with the scavenger girl.
In the film, her outfit is designed to appeal to the audience. It is created in a different style than the actual order of the scavenger womens’ sari dressing pattern. She has also transformed her walk to a style of walking with heavy feet like a fashion model. A closer look at Neruda's description reveals that he was attracted to her because of her beauty and her disregard for him. As I read this section on the film and on the book, I was reminded of the award-winning Czechoslovakian film ‘Adrift’ with English subtitles, directed by Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos in 1971.
‘A rural fisherman brings home a young girl named Anada who was drowning. She then befriends his wife and Anada's disregard for fisherman begins to attract him to Anada.
Anada's character is very similar to Neruda's description of the Sakkili girl. “like a shy jungle animal she belonged to another kind of existence, a different world” Anada is also a woman with a different existence. The fisherman is sexually attracted to her as she grabs the side of her paddle without much talk. Meanwhile, the fisherman decides to increase the dose of medicine given to his wife Suska who is ill while pregnant, kill her and get Anada to him.
The fisherman sets the alarm on the clock and tells his wife to take the medicine on time. Meanwhile, Anada jumps back into the river. The fisherman who was sailing in search of the floodwaters did not find her. He remembers his wife and runs home shouting her name. But these filmmakers show the fisherman's mentality by using the house scene away from him and the sound of the clock.
Artistically declaring to the audience that he will never get close to Suska again for the horrible crime he committed.’
When a white officer grabs the hand of an untouchable woman or who is annoying to touch, what kind of mentality might that woman have had? Neruda's note shows that a woman who is rejected by the world and who knows that she is not even worth seeing, followed the man holding her hand without protesting for a moment. Alborada does not understand this emotional value.
According to his memoirs, Pablo Neruda had an insight into the visual images of Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Without any confusion, he wrote that ‘Kali is the goddess of death.’ For the film Alborada, Parvati is used as a symbol, one of the foremost mother deities in the Hindu pantheon.
Mother Goddess Parvati symbolises modesty, conservative and gentleness. This concept developed under the Tantric formation. (World religion, Mother goddess, P.23 John Bowker, Dorling Kindersley London. 1992)
‘Her waist, so very slim, her full hips, the brimming cups of her breasts made her look like one of the thousand year old sculptures from South India.’
For the visualisation of Neruda’s commentary, the filmmaker has taken an image of Parvati. This is a combination of Neruda's desire for sex with the golden Parvati statue in the film.
When Neruda grabs the scavenger girl, she is shown painted in gold to show Neruda's sexual mentality. But Neruda's writings does not mention a Parvati deity. This is what flows from the beginning of the film to the end to reach its climax.
If correctly analysed, this means a sexual bond with the mother. This was analysed by Sigmund Freud under Oedipus Complex. This does not really fall on Neruda. The responsibility here goes to the filmmaker. Is this the mindset of the filmmaker? Done unknowingly or consciously? This is a fact that arises through the film. My understanding is that this is a confusion of concepts. Most likely it is conceivable that the script of these instances were written without further research or studies and also not post-evaluating it. Kamini and Ragini concepts are also visible among the Indian Hindu sculptures.
Images dropped to the ground
It is clear that the main intention of the filmmaker is to question the masculine traits that have been displayed in relation to women in the character of Pablo Neruda. This is clear from the speech made by Ashoka Handagama at the ceremony of first public screening of the film and the launch of the rewriting of Neruda's ‘Memoirs’ book in Sinhala by Saman Wickramaarachchi at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall.
Such criticisms have taken place all over the world in the recent past. This is stated in the letter I wrote before the screening of the film titled ‘Beyond the fiction of Alborada’. Efforts to do such a thing in a Sri Lankan film should be appreciated.
If the exaggerations and artistic grammatical shortcomings of the film could have been avoided, the filmmaker's questioning would have been stronger.
On the other hand, the filmmaker presents the scavenger girl as an imaginary fantasy of Neruda, or a fiction from time to time. The author who translated memoirs into Sinhala also quotes SlavojŽižek and says the same thing.
If he had been so attracted to this girl, would he not have felt her grief?
This seems to be an attempt to free Pablo Neruda from his own confession that, "It's fair that she hates me." The viewer feels this through the poet's remorse portrayed at the end of the film. Little do these analysts realise that these people do not rub shit on themselves, that they wake up at dawn and bathe in the sea, river, or stream, anoint their foreheads with ash, worship their god and go to work. This proves that the various philosophical colors painted on the lives of these people have not been done by study.
Marketing
It's a bit questionable, to release a movie to the public and also to launch the Sinhala book of Memoirs on the same day as a marketing strategy on Valentine's Day. According to my knowledge this is how Pablo Neruda is introduced as the symbol of Valentine in this country for the first time.
It was an indirect invitation to young people and lovers to watch the film. Although the director said ‘the day he got was the best day,’ the preface of the book shows that it was a pre-arranged date.
The visual media majorly used a visual image of the young scavenger girl abused by Neruda in the film. The symbol of the Valentine rose flower is also used.
But this attractive young woman was the worst victim of coercion and injustice. This young woman who is in a very small incident in the book Memoirs also comes with the cover of the Sinhala book as a marketing attraction rather than in sympathy for her. This marketing strategy is like a sharp blade that cuts both sides. Despite composing love poems, Neruda is not a Valentine symbol. Romeo and Juliet is a Valentine symbol from fiction by the great playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and the living symbol of Valentine is the great poet Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837). The Russians celebrate it not in February but in June on his birthday.
Ethnic explanation
Writing on facebook about the Alborada film, the director said: “Now the situation is different. There are no more untouchables, they have blended in with the rest of the people, you cannot find differences. There is no such class or ratio difference in society. It’s totally changed. But this incident still has a kind of power or relevance to read the society. We can create a dialogue out of that, and that’s why I wanted to make a film about this.”
This creates a misleading picture of contemporary ethnographic structures in the country have also migrated to Kandy, Nuwara Eliya and Badulla areas. Some people are still in Colombo. In the recent past, some of these ethnic groups changed their names to Sinhala for protection. Also, some have changed their names to Thomas, Stephen, Peter and embraced Christianity. The hidden caste system in Sinhala society can be easily observed from the wedding proposal advertisements published in the Sinhala newspapers. It is true that there are no more untouchable people. But the problem still exists.