Sudath Mahadivulwewa, the producer is well-known for his various feature films, documentaries, theatre work and social awareness campaigns in Sri Lanka. His latest film ‘My Red Comrade’, is openly political and experimental. A major aspect of the film is a debate between the old view of revolution and a more modern one which is construed to be more inclusive.
The film conveys a message “think simple as a child, and do not make things more complicated than necessary”. To demonstrate this, the film uses a native American fable about a wolf. How the wolf gets into us from the environment we are brought in, an environment in which we receive our education, the media we are exposed to and the conscious choices we make: the moral of the tale being what wolf to feed and what wolf do we reject.
It appears to have been used as a metaphor for capitalism which has destructively transformed the extraction and exploitation of the environment and human beings. Considering the environment the vast majority of people labour under, what are the political social issues springing from that inequitable and destructive system that the protagonists of the film debate?
The title of the film itself denotes that it will be about the Left. The very first scene confronts us with the repressive state apparatus and its victims. Without overwhelming us, the scene expertly draws our attention to think about these issues. The film commences with a scene where the main female character is subject to a police hunt. To avoid getting caught, she hides in an unknown dilapidated slum-like dwelling occupied by a middle-aged man.
The sounds employed heightens and enhances the drama taking place, with lighting also enhancing the tone and mood. By this astute use of sound, lighting and props, My Red Comrade confines its narrative and action to a night in a simple one-bedroom dwelling, taking us to a complex and problematic night with a myriad of survival situations predicated on an inherently radical communal humanism.
The sound of the image, a moving train takes us from one dramatic arc to another. The leaking water from the roof falling onto pots on the floor depicts the social status of the inhabitant. Lighting appears to have been used cleverly, with the light bulb dimming and going of and the burning candles taken as depicting the energy issue. The intense rain may denote the efects of climate change.
The male occupant with his long-dishevelled hair and unruly beard is reminiscent of the portraits of Karl Marx. He is a typical vivid reader and writer with a large book collection, with proficiency in the use of a laptop, a scooter, and a mobile phone. It brings to mind the archetypical well-read leftist political activist. Maintaining an extensive ‘library’ under a run-down leaking roof of a shanty town is unrealistic, heightened by a Soviet era poster.
Better world
She (as she is known throughout the film) expects the well-read ‘leftist’ (the Red Comrade) to believe in an equal society and to aspire to build a better world, to be a kind-hearted person. But his behaviour belies his political beliefs. He does not look at her when she addresses him and demands her to vacate the place. He, who dreams of a decent world of equals, thinks highly of himself compared to others, and expects respect and deference from others, continues to be rude to her.
His character displays a contradiction: initially of a rigid rudeness and disrespect and later being compassionate and of flexible politeness, towards the girl who is wet and shivering with cold. After making cofee, he sees her sitting on his chair and barks at her: “why did you sit on my chair?” She becomes irritated and asks whether his chair is a throne. He demonstrates no kindness, until he finds out about her desperate situation. Ultimately, he persuades her to remain saying that it is yet raining outside, and the police may be still hanging around in the vicinity.
After hearing her story of how her mother left her father and how he looked after her without letting her feel the absence of her mother in her life; and later, how her father was killed by the security forces, he offers his chair for her to sit down and proposes to cook some dinner for them both. Nevertheless, there is only one plate for them to have dinner. They discuss the choices they can make in an understanding and compromising manner. Ultimately, they agree to share the same plate. Then, he proposes to have a chat and she becomes more sociable. She takes the black and red cofee mugs she had brought and ofers the red mug to the Red Comrade. One wonders whether the scene depicted the cultural inhibitions in a proper manner.
Such an attitude may have been generated by many factors, though the impression I got while viewing was that of a typical male comrade who is committed and dedicated to his cause, but still prejudicial against women. The disparity and distance between the two are depicted with the girl looking outside while he is looking at her, both standing still and silent, enhanced by the noise a weeping dog makes. Later in the film, this comes out clearly during many scenes, when “the comrade” says ‘women do not understand it.” And when the girl shouts back – but you have no room for women like me in your equal society. He stubbornly continues to underestimate the strength and commitment of the young woman.
He receives a warning, that the security forces are onto him, but does not want to tell her believing that she cannot be of any help. He asks her to leave to avoid getting arrested. If she were not there, he could have left the place immediately, but they cannot leave as the police have surrounded the area. She questions why. Is it because being arrested with a girl at his house would ruin the chastity of his left politics? He is adamant that there are no “us” here, yet both are to be arrested under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act.
Performing artist
At first, she lied when asked going to the extent to state: “My family knows me as doing a good job”. She does this as she thought nobody would understand her story. She refuses to leave, but thinks of a way that would save them both. Then she reveals her real role that she is a performing artist. To save them both from being arrested by police, she impersonates a sex worker, with the police leaving thinking that she is in fact a sex worker.
The sadistic nature of state repression and the degradation of the legal system are starkly illuminated when she says the police would place a packet of drugs, to keep her in custody for at least six months. A tacit understanding is illustrated, when the girl with a liking towards the library of books movingly reveals what happened to her father, an avid collector and reader of progressive Russian literature. Her father’s influence on her becomes clearer when she recites certain paragraphs with lines like: “A person is a slave from birth unto death” from Maxim Gorky’s Makar Chudra short story book that her father had.
Both characters are committed to the same political vision, but did not know each other until they met accidentally due to a police pursuit. They fought for the same dream, but the state killed the dreamers of the nation, creating a country without dreamers. Many, who cherish to achieve those equitable dreams, continue to march forward under the banners of building a better society. Both characters have been subjected to state repression diferently.
The Red Comrade was arrested in 1989 and taken to the famous Eliyakanda torture camp, from there to Boossa in Galle, and then to racecourse torture camp in Racecourse, Colombo. There he experiences the professional killers of the state who have been trained to torture and kill, who take a sadistic pleasure in their work. How else can a person urinate in someone’s mouth, who is asking for water? Nevertheless, he survives by accident as the state murderers run out of petrol to burn the bodies of the killed. That episode ends with the ironic tale: where the shooter, who enjoyed killing, was pleading for life, while the man who pleaded for life, but was shot, was smiling happily before his death. Both dead bodies are burnt to ashes.
A film needs to reflect the social and political concerns of the era in which it is made. It can be historically contextualised, though it cannot be seen as a window onto the past. It will approximate that past. What it does is to point to the events of the past rather than depicting it. Films can summarise enormous amounts of facts symbolising complexities that could not have been otherwise displayed. It does not need to be a book of history the victors of a certain class society had constructed. So, for a film to become realistic, it has to convey an overall past that can be sensibly reasoned out.
History as experiment is a form of film, which could be dramatic as well as documentary, or a combination of the two. Avant-garde and independent filmmakers use this form in opposition to mainstream films, thus not only just looking at the subject matter, but also at the way of constructing a world on screen. In this exercise, one does not need to break down all standards of historical truth, but to accept another way of seeing and understanding our relationship to the past. In the process, further pursue the conversation-where we came from, where we are going, and who we are. Making films that are absolutely accurate and true representations of the past realities is impossible. This is so not only for financial reasons. For example, depending on the type of media used to portray history, the scope presented will become restricted to certain boundaries.
The disparity between what the two characters identify when listening to rain with their eyes closed shows how close they are to reality. The girl hears natural sounds; however, what the Red Comrade hears is his feelings: like a child crying while a mother is singing a lullaby, or a man and a woman fighting with each other. Gradually and finally, the man also comes to hear the natural sound of rain. The girl asks how the comrade missed the sound of the rain which they were both experiencing. Obviously, the comrade has heard the rain, but not listened to it.
This is symbolically depicted as the reason revolution did not succeed in Sri Lanka. The revolution the film argues needs to happen firstly, in people’s hearts. The Red Comrade isolated from human social relationships does not believe one needs to be with the people to transform society. She believes diferently. She emphatically says that one cannot plant poplar trees brought from Russia in Sri Lanka. They need to suit the soil of Sri Lanka.
Talking about how May Day became the Workers’ Day, they again politically diverge. Was the demand for an eight-hour day just a demand for a lesser number of working hours? Or was it a demand for the workers time to think, read, dream and to enjoy time with their families? Workers walked out because they wanted to find space and time for them to become “cultural beings”, beings with a 360-degree relationship mindset, an impossible task to achieve; a being who could dream of a brighter and more equitable future that we all aspire to build. Yet, he thinks the “cultural being” will be lost in the dark, while she thinks that the “cultural being” is what is most needed during the darker days. Finally, both of them get together to light a candle to expel the darkness.
The violent nature of state repression comes out movingly with her story. Her father met a violent death at the hands of the security forces sacrificing his love of book she had amassed to prevent his daughter from being hurt by the masked men. Her father was forced to move all books to the middle of the house. Then the forces poured petrol and set fire to the books. Then they shot her father forcing him to fall onto the burning pyre of books with both him and the books becoming ashes.
This evokes emotions reminding us of what the forces and politicians did during the three uprisings in the island, particularly when they set alight the Jaffna library. She mutters: “In Russia, those who read those books made the revolution and in Sri Lanka, they were killed.”
Psychological burdens
The film also portrays the Post Traumatic Distress Disorder (PTSD) Sri Lankan society is under when she reveals the untold secret story of her father’s death, relieving herself from the psychological burdens she had been carrying throughout her life, till then. She is not alone, the whole society of Sri Lanka is under psychological stress, with most people feeling constantly on edge, confused, exhausted, anxious, agitated and dissociated. Some of them appear to have become numb to what happens in society. Some symptoms may go away by themselves or with the assistance of family members, friends and religious leaders, but those who need professional help most often do not get the much-needed psychological counselling.
An artwork will mostly be an embodiment of the artist’s beliefs and the artist’s response to opposing beliefs. A review obviously shares some of those opinions, thus giving rise to a situation where the political content of the artwork would be easily amplified giving rise to increased politicisation of the artwork’s content.
In a Marxist sense, culture has been called “the way of life for a society”, that represents all the ways of life including the arts; beliefs and institutions of a society that are passed down from generation to generation. Thus, it includes any critical contribution that is concerned not only with principles and methods, but also those who focus on interpreting and /or critically examining cultural practices, historical or contemporary.
In my view, the film “My Red Comrade”makes such a critical contribution. It is an independent film taking a more realistic approach rather than a melodramatic formalistic one – though certain episodes at various points appear to break that sense of reality. This occurs while attempting to break the monotone of the scenes and make it more appealing; it does not harm the message that it tries to convey to the audience. It represents a departure from past films both political and non-political.
Diferent approach
The filmmaker uses a completely diferent approach in reflecting the social and political realities in Sri Lanka. At its heart, it is based on true incidents that the history of the island abounds with. It does not aim to make a grand social or political statement by heightening the drama to an extent that it becomes not believable. In doing so, it does not take away the honesty and poignancy of the message. The film portrays the events honestly and allows the audience to react accordingly. Thus, the filmmakers tacitly acknowledge the fact that audiences do not mindlessly absorb everything at face value, but are capable of understanding and debating fiction. Even the most inaccurate ones can prompt questions, spark debate, sharpen the ability to assess and analyse.
The music and lighting buttresses the film, complementing the story. Its narrative strength lies in letting us feel the story of the two protagonists. Letting people react naturally is much more efective at starting a conversation about the issues raised. With simple lyrics and music, the song, “Repetitively struck lightning– In one of those nights” by Nadeeka Guruge intertwines seamlessly with the drama unfolding.
One significant moment for me in the film was the statement “When we live with fire. We become accustomed to play with fire.” How true it has been in the practical aspects of our lives. The film ends with the girl’s words “There, I saved one. If possible, save yourselves”, reflecting the fact that many of us became progressives, or socialists or Marxists because we were and are humanists. We cannot depart from that stance in any aspect of our lives. That is the message that the film skilfully conveys.
Tharindi Fernando and Asiri Allage, fine actors that they are, are essential in giving the film the emotional and naturalist heft to convey the many ideas of the film in a way that audience scan relate to. The film can be said to be rooted in Marxist aesthetics and dialectics, as, it indirectly questions the prevailing ideas about the economic and social system. For example, the film narrates a plot of rejecting individualism as an ideological value by placing us in between a spectrum of individualism versus communal action. It can be seen as an attempt at re-politicising culture and society by using the cinematic art as an instrument and argument against capitalism, which promotes the cultural and political regimentation of the masses.
Fiction, satire, misinformation, propaganda and “fake news” have been with us for millennia, and they are here to stay. If we learn to think critically as individuals and as societies, we can make better judgments and decisions. We need not only to understand and survive complexities of the modern world, but also embrace it. Some filmmakers care deeply about history and do feel responsible for it. Sadly, those who fund their films have no responsibility towards it.
This is an excellent film, with fine direction, a masterful script with skilful use of sound and lighting and impeccable performance from the leads which are both naturalist and moving; a commendable and brave experimentation in filmmaking.
