A Sri Lankan genius is helming a Bengali boi (film). The genius in question is a bespectacled, dusky guy from Colombo, a geeky-looking Ceylonese man, who prefers to maintain a low-key even in public events. This enterprising young talent is an award-winning film director named Vimukthi Jayasundara. He also doubles up as a visual artist.
Incidentally, his critically acclaimed film Between Two Worlds was showcased at the recently held 16th Kolkata Film Festival at the Nandan theatres. At about the same time, Jayasundara dropped in at Kolkata’s old Metro Cinema to oblige the scribes and shutterbugs on the final day of the Cine Central’s International Forum of New Cinema. His yet another widely applauded movie, The Forsaken Land, was screened in the evening show. A one-on-one with the dynamic director in close proximity brought out his perceptive assertions manifested in his few must-watch and recommended works, besides his seething potentials and tonnes of promises lying concealed underneath an otherwise nondescript appearance.
Born in Ratnapura at Sri Lanka, Jayasundara stands tall in the forefront of young generation directors who have made a mark with their path-breaking creations in globally recognised arenas. With a vision of a master picturemaker, this resourceful student of cinema has had the good fortune of bracing his basics and grasping his ropes from the FTII in Pune and later on, from Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains-France.
Armed with a degree from the Education Mahinda College in Galle, Jayasundara had ever since immersed himself into the world of magic realism to perfect the art of depicting reality with a deeper sense of understanding. “Taking a dive into films was a conscious decision on my part. Actually, I did get attracted to the medium at a very early age,” he says.
Following his time at Fresnoy, he directed a short film titled Empty for Love that got filmed in France and Sri Lanka. The film was produced by Lefresnoy. It was officially selected to the Cannes film festival in 2003 and had won the Best Director Award at the Novo Mesto International Short Film festival hosted in Slovenia in 2003. His filmography consists of commendable creations like a string of short-films namely, Thibiri Dela (1996), Land Of Silence (2002), Empty for Love (2003), besides the full-length projects such as The Forsaken Land (2005) and Between Two Worlds (2009) and the currently under-production titles, Through the Windshield, a feature film to be made back home in Sri Lanka and the Bengali film in progress called Mushrooms.
Putting the stress more on aesthetics than technology in his films, the director says: “I don’t use technology just for the heck of it. Practically, most of my movie materials are aesthetically and not technically developed to the hilt. Even if I’m employing a clutch of technical tools, I always try and use the best options available on board to enhance my film’s quality of look, feel and sound. Slick cinematography is the order of the day. Hence, we can’t deny the presence of an indispensable technology in today’s context to mount up a film on a magnificent pedestal. But I’m always up for ventures that are designed from the heart.”
Talking of inspiration, Jayasundara veers the conversation to life or the different ways of living to take recourse to as a predominant subject to reel a film out of it. “Life is such a wonderful thing to learn your daily lessons from, you know. It’s an institution in itself. It gives you instant happiness, so does it wrest it off with a grief-stricken pang. But even in the throes of tragedy, you may just succeed to turn the tables around and create something fascinating out of nothingness. Such is life. It’s moody and has its own whims and fancies to shock you with either a jolt or a pleasant surprise. You never know when will it pull a rabbit out of its hat like a magician. Life is actually an amalgamation of time-frames and slots of spaces, and cinema is to create these different spaces and time-periods from our existential experiences,” he says.
No matter how uncanny this may sound but the spirited helmer is interestingly hell-bent on embarking himself upon a new kind of voyage. He has already fastened his seat belts to experience an unfamiliar flight in an exotic zone. Of late, he commenced his new experiment of manufacturing movies based on the key component called “character” with a Bengali film. Currently, he is shooting the film at various locations of North Kolkata, Rajarhat in the outskirts and Bolpur near Shantiniketa.
“In this Bengali endeavour, my protagonist essays an architect’s character. He is a non-resident Bengali, but returns to his native state after several years,” says the director who is ever keen to walk down the road less travelled.
But what prompted him to script a film in Bengali? “Why not? Isn’t Bengali just another language?” he shoots back when probed about his foray into an alien sphere. “A film is but a language, a vehicle of expression of its own. Tagore was a great poet-philosopher from this land and alluding to his golden words, I would like to reiterate his quote where he had affirmed that film is a unique medium and its language is universal. It’s nothing like the dynamics of an artform. Now coming to your query for holding the clapstick to a Bengali film, I must say that I’ve voraciously watched all Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak films as an avid world cine-buff and also as a pupil of the craft. So in a way, I have always wanted to pay a tribute to them in their mother tongue. And this film would be a befitting gift to their memory,” he says.
But won’t a foreign language pose problems for him? “Why should it in the first place? Language is no barrier in creative fields. Moreover, you speak English, I speak English and so do we all in maximum. Of course, there will be a Bengali interpreter posted on the sets throughout to ensure a smooth, hassle-free ride all the way. The translator will lucidly paraphrase my directorial cues to a bevy of talented actors and artistes, culled from the local Bengali film industry,” he says.
While 95 per cent of his entire unit comprises all Bengali technicians and Tollywood actors, Jayasundara’s Sri Lankan cinematographer and a sound engineer from Paris have, in fact, accompanied him to the town to rent a flat for his stay during the shoot-schedule of his eagerly awaited movie. Talented Bollywood actor Chandan Roy Sanyal (of Kaminey fame), besides a horde of international artistes, has been pencilled in by the casting director for primary selection of the lead cast.
The title of the movie has been aptly chosen as Mushrooms. “That was in my first draft and I wish to continue with the same name, because it significantly bears a metaphorical connotation in the flick. The film navigates an architect’s roller-coaster life and its ensuing upheavals. If you closely gaze at the minute structure of a mushroom, you’ll find it stemming up from nowhere, that is, it has no basic root foundation. And it strangely vanishes after a certain point of time. In today’s context, that is precisely the condition of all urban building constructions. The cityscape is dotted with highrises and the skyline is rapidly changing with the ingress of a webbed network of malls-n-multiplexes. Don’t they look like mushrooms from top when peered down via an aerial view?” he asks.
To forge an instant mental connect, his first major claim to fame lies in reeling two thought-provoking movies that fetched him international appreciation: The Forsaken Land and Between Two Worlds. Having been selected at the globally renowned Cannes Film Festival only five years ago in 2005, his maiden movie, The Forsaken Land, went on to win the prestigious Camera d’Or award. Incidentally, he was the first Sri Lankan recipient of this reward, who bagged it soon after his foray in the world-wide cinematic realm. His second film, Between Two Worlds, got a nod at the current year’s Cannes filmfest nominations.