Television has a habit of engaging us
with “the moment”. Beyond that, it passes away. Sure, there probably are a
great many ideas which get scripted into the medium, but for the most we overlook
them. That’s natural, particularly in a context where the few shows which stand
out get subsumed by those that do not. Good ideas tend to be outnumbered by the
bad and the mediocre, after all, something which can be said of every art form.
Creative ventures aren’t hard to get, but they aren’t easy to get either. The
same goes for those who choose to work in the medium.
Sameera Hasun entered the film industry
in 2005. He began as an Assistant Art Director, absorbing everything and
anything that came his way and in the process nurturing his sensibilities to
near-perfection. He eventually rose up the ranks and ended where he is today: a
director, a scriptwriter, and in more ways than one a connoisseur. He’s worked
with several top names in the industry and what’s more, is willing to admit
error and deficiency in whatever he does. His latest effort Yal Devi, by the
looks of it, testifies to this. Amply.
Yal Devi is a teleseries, but not the
kind you normally see today. On a basic level (I’m not wont to revealing
spoilers, by the way), it delves into the ethnic conflict and the afterword it
compels. Swarnavahini began airing it on June 27, and it has been going on
every night at 8.30 ever since. Will it make it or will it not? Tough
questions, but Sameera isn’t the sort to dodge them. So naturally, I ask them.
Before everything else though, I first
ask him to elaborate on the series. He replies by saying that while the ethnic
conflict does indeed figure in it, it’s not really a post-war narrative (at
least not the kind that gets the limelight nowadays) but more so an assessment
on the post-war “moment” and how we as a people are yet to embrace an identity
that transcends identity and race. I dig deeper, but he cautions me: “There’s
nothing deep here. It’s a theme that’s as simple as it’s going to get and a
theme one can never overuse.”
The plot is simple enough. A Tamil
family saves a wounded Sinhalese soldier (Saranga Disasekara) during the war.
That family (the daughter is the heroine of the story) moves to Wellawatte four
years later. The plot thickens, the daughter (Niranjani Shanmugaraja)
“rediscovers” the soldier, they fall for each other, and everyone in turn falls
under and revolves around their affair. I won’t reveal the ending or how these
characters get there, because it is the role of the artiste, not the writer, to
reveal. And yet, one can concede, this simple, superficial plot provokes
comment. I will therefore comment.
One can allege that the romantic element
to Yal Devi is hackneyed, but the beauty of it is that the plot narrows down to
its larger canvas or rather larger themes. In other words (and I get this from
Sameera himself) it is the theme, not the love triangle, which dictates the
entire series. “The focus is on the present. Not the past. It’s about embracing
differences and about celebrating togetherness.” One can point at the sequence
of the war conveniently laid down at the beginning, where the soldier and the
woman meet for the first time, and then retrace their later relationship to
that. Fate and destiny, it would seem, pretty much plays a role in the entire
series, which I suspect would lead many to label Yal Devi as another mega-drama.
Sameera disagrees with me there, though.
“I don’t think you can label it like that. True, it goes on for more than a
hundred episodes, but that’s just about it.” According to him Yal Devi would
lose half its essence if audiences watch it with the same mindset they have while
watching the conventional mega-drama, a point he firmly makes clear to me.
And in this I believe he is correct.
Television shows, as I pointed out, live rarely if at all beyond the moment.
The themes they engender are almost all the same: someone falls in love, fawns
on the lover, gets repudiated by his or her family, and spends the rest of the plot
trying to get him or her back. There’s no doubt that Yal Devi too will have
such an angle, particularly in relation to the affair between the soldier and
the woman, but beyond that I doubt anyone can really spot out a “mega element”
as such.
At this point Sameera remembers some
names for me, in particular Buddhika Kulasekara of Swarnavahini, “who made it
possible for me to go ahead.” What of his own cast and crew? Sameera admits he
can’t highlight any name in particular, and it is a sign of the man’s modesty
that he brings down his own contribution. “Yal Devi is as much mine as it is everyone
else’s. As far as ownership goes, it belongs to no one in particular.”
Given his manifest opposition to “mega-dramas”
and attempts made at labelling his show under that category, what does he think
about Yal Devi’s prospects? Firstly, he says that he shaped the entire project
with TV audiences in mind, which means that there will be those recognisable
and discernible points which only television can claim. Again, in this I
believe he is correct. When it comes to any art form, compromise is the name of
the game. I suspect Sameera knows this more than anyone else, so I ask him to
elaborate. He obliges.
He contends that while Yal Devi will not
be aimed at the lowest common denominator, it won’t overlook their tastes
either. That’s all too inevitable in a medium where audience perceptions can
change with just a remote button and where broadcasters and channels, in their
rush to make a quick buck, convert ideas into populist storylines. I’m sure
that Sameera, given his tryst with television and his understanding of its
commercial thrust, has shaped his teledrama to suit the proverbial majority.
Secondly however, he concedes that he
may fail in getting that majority to his side. Even for a modest man like him
that is a wild claim, so I ask him why. “In this industry audiences are, as you
know, chameleonic. They flip channels the moment boredom sets in and this
applies to even long running shows. On the other hand Yal Devi wasn’t conceived
to ward off boredom that way. It’s not crude. It’s not crass. You need time to
reflect and time to adjust. The story isn’t exactly slow, but nor is it quick. True,
these are still early days, but I have a feeling that audiences will need to
adjust, particularly since my show runs through as many episodes as a
conventional mega-drama and still can’t be put under that category. This may
frustrate some. Can’t help.”
So what does he think about the cinema?
“I personally prefer it to the TV. In fact I came to this industry through
films. I was the Assistant Art Director for Giriraj Kaushalya’s Sikuru Hathe in 2005. I was taken in thanks to Newton Gunasekara, himself an Art Director
and a veteran of sorts.” He rattles off a list of names he’s associated with:
Bennet Ratnayake, Somadasa Maldeniya, Ananda Abeynayake, and Dharmasena
Pathiraja (the latter of whom he worked with on his teledrama Kampitha Vil,
which gave Sameera the courage to strike out his own path).
He then observes that his work as an Art
Director taught him much about the visual aspect to films. I put to him that
while most professionals in the industry prefer to dabble in editing, scripting,
camerawork, or directing, the field he chose to work in would have encouraged
him to tread paths less travelled in the medium. He agrees. “There’s a sense of
inevitability in what I do,” he argues, “which is to say that we don’t or
shouldn’t ‘rush’ when it comes to, say, framing a scene or sequence. If we do,
we’ll end up ruining everything.”
Getting back to my question, he admits
that there’s little to no potential in the television industry. “We have a very
‘chanchala’ (volatile) audience here. You end up cutting down on your own
potential to please everyone, which helps neither you nor your audience. That’s
why I hope to move into the cinema, to take what I have learnt with me and to
turn as many ideas I have into reality.”
Yal Devi, going by all this, will
impress. At one level it boasts of many things: its cast (ranging from younger
names like Saranga and Dharshana Dharmaraj to veterans like Maurine Charuni, Rangana
Premanath, and Meena Kumari), locations (Jaffna, Trincomalee, Chilaw, Udappuwa,
Dehiwela, and Wellawatte), and logistics. Whether it will deliver the way
Sameera (and more importantly, discerning audiences) would want to is another debate
altogether.
At another level it embraces a number of
themes we’re just beginning to affirm: the absence of identity, the universality
of human emotion, and the prejudices and mindsets of a nation still trying to
unshackle itself of the post-war moment. All laudable, no doubt.
Sure, it’s too quick to congratulate Sameera or idealise what he’s done. But then we can wish him luck. We can also hope. And we can smile.
Written for: Ceylon Today LITE, August 7 2016
Written for: Ceylon Today LITE, August 7 2016
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