Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Gamperaliya / The Changing Village



ගම්පෙරලිය / Forgotten Village [translated title on print] / A Family Chronicle. LK 1965. PC: Cinelanka. D: Lester James Peries. SC: Reggie Siriwardena - based on the novel by Martin Wickremasinghe. DP: William Blake.
    C: Wickrema Bogoda (Tissa), Gamini Fonseka (Jinadasa), Punya Hiendeniya (Nanda), Henry Jayasena (Pryal Weliweli). In Sinhala language [sous-titres francais?], e-subtitles in Italian and English. 105 min.
    Print: UCLA. Special thanks: Pierre Rissient.
    Viewed in Cinema Arlecchino, Bologna, 1 July 2008.

A beautiful, sensitive portrait of a young woman in the beginning of the 20th century in the vast villas of a vanishing upper caste. Paraphrasing Isabelle Jordan's text in Positif, quoted in Bologna's programme book: she is caught between two ages, two centuries, two cultures, where women wear European lace bodices with Sri Lankan cotton skirts. A quiet, intensive, refined interpretation of a heartbreaking story. In the same league with Satyajit Ray.

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