Filmmaker Prasanna Vithanage says making Paradise was like holding a mirror to myself and country

Even while basking in the glory of the Kim Jiseok Award for the best film at the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) for Paradise, Sri Lankan filmmaker Prasanna Vithanage is already planning his next two films. Over a video call, the director, talks about Paradise, his new projects and his approach to cinema. Edited excerpts from the interview.

Paradise, which was screened as part of the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, is about a Malayali couple, Amritha, a blogger, and Keshav, a content creator, from Mumbai who travel to Sri Lanka for their fifth wedding anniversary. An unexpected incident plunges the tourists into the cauldron of economic desperation, linguistic and racial divisions. The crisis exposes the faultlines in their relationship.

Calling the film an act of resilience from a cash-strapped country, he says the movie helps him explore contemporary politics and the socio-economic situation in Sri Lanka. “It was also an act of self-discovery, as a man and a husband. It was like a two-edged sword. It was interesting for me to work on these two (aspects) – to explore what is happening and to expose your mindset.”

Inspired by Indian cinema, Prasanna wanted to make one in an Indian language. “Then this story came to my mind. The film is not shot in India but the characters come from India to Sri Lanka against the backdrop of the economic catastrophe. I have been inquisitive about the Ramayana tour and I have been thinking over the years about some Indian characters on the Ramayana tour. Now, all this came to one basket — the Ramayana tour and the economics and the Indian characters.”

Prasanna maintains that “this dramatic premise gave me a chance to look into myself, about my relationship; it was like holding a mirror to myself and my country.”

Roshan Mathew and Darshana Rajendran in a still from Paradise
| Photo Credit:
Nerun Kalpajith

For Amrita (Darshana Rajendran) and Keshav (Roshan Mathew), the journey becomes the means to discover themselves against the backdrop of the economic recession in Sri Lanka. While peeling away the layers of social and economic injustice that have beset the country, the director also zooms into the relationship of the couple, when the personal becomes the political and vice-versa.

Multi-layered, multi-lingual

The multi-layered movie is also multi-lingual although the original script, including the dialogues, was written in Sinhala with co-writer Anushka Senanayake and translated into English.

“When the characters (Amrita and Keshav) reach Sri Lanka, they interact with a tour guide who knows English. The couple speak to each other in Malayalam and Hindi. However, due to an unexpected situation, they have to interact with local residents. So, it is a dramatic situation when your lead characters don’t know what the others are saying…”

“The politics of language is also a two-edged sword because of the way they use the language. The superiority comes from the way the language is used and with whom. It shows who they are, the way they speak the language, how they mingle with speakers of different languages.”

Familiar face at IFFK

Prasanna has attended different editions of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) in various capacities – filmmaker, jury and producer.

“I have been attending the fete from 1998. When my films were picked up by film societies in small towns, I would travel with it to smaller film fetes and screenings by film societies all over Kerala. Machan, directed by Uberto Pasolini, which I had co-produced had won an award at one of the editions of IFFK. I remember how the delegates carried me on their shoulders.”

An admirer of masters from Kerala such as the late G Aravindan, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, and Shaji N Karun, he says even the present generation of writers and directors are inspiring.

“IFFK patrons are known to be (I have witnessed that…) passionate about cinema. If they like a film, they will say so and if they don’t, they will say it, without mincing words…”

They did not have a Malayalam script. The dialogues in Malayalam and Hindi were improvised by the actors on the spot. “I was supported by them. All the lines were there, the language to deliver those was chosen by the actors in the way the characters developed in that scene. It was not pre-planned.”

Roshan Mathew and Darshana Rajendran in a still from Prasanna Vithanage’s Paradise
| Photo Credit:
Nerun Kalpajith

It was actor-turned-director Geethu Mohandas who introduced Prasanna to  Anto Chittilappilly, head of Newton Cinema, which produced the movie. “The script was already written. The producers liked the script and gave me a free hand after discussing the budget.”

Speaking about the award, he says it affirms the BIFF’s support for Asian cinema. “I have been to Busan many times. I was at the first fete in 1996 with my second film, Ananthya Rathriya (Dark Night of The Soul). BIFF promotes Asian cinema and gives a platform for co-producing Asian films and for Asian film academia.”

Since his characters were South Indians living in Mumbai for professional reasons, he wanted to cast actors who could do justice to the roles. Pointing out that since Kerala and Sri Lanka are very similar, not only in geography but in other aspects, he found it easy to etch his characters while writing the script. He had been impressed by Roshan’s work in Geethu’s Moothon and reached out to her to get his contact.

“I met Roshan in Kochi. Every director dreams of a person who reciprocates, and is sensitive to (their) characters and travels an extra mile (to portray them). After I shared the script with him, he came to meet me with a notebook full of notes. I had a notebook too. And our notes were similar, our observations about the characters and on.”

Sterling act

In the case of Darshana, it was her sterling act in C U Soon that caught his eye. “She has all the characteristics I see in a good actor. She is perfect when it comes to timing, her eye and body movements, and dialogues are on point. Even without saying anything, we could see from her facial expression what is going on in her mind. That’s the biggest asset.” He adds that his cast enriched the drama, the script and the story.

Ace cinematographer-director Rajeev Ravi became a part of two of his films — Gaadi – Children of The Sun and Paradise, after a meeting in 2012 during the post-production of With You, Without You in Chennai, when they became instant friends, says Prasanna. “When I shared the script of Gaadi with him, he liked it. Gaadi has a historical background, with the landscape as a character. Rajeev has done that before in some of his films. For this film, we needed a cinematographer who would capture the landscape as well as the emotions of the characters. The film is an intimate film on an epic scale. It is a journey of two characters, who are uprooted from society and are wandering. They are trying to find about themselves through historical incidents and situations.”

Prasanna recalls that Rajeev told him, that they should have a clear idea of the characters’ travel. “Rajeev brought in visuals of river and mountainous regions. In this way, the audience was involved in the story, giving them the idea and space of the film and the locale. It helps the audience visualise and understand the journey by the landscape.”

So, when Prasanna was working on a new film with two Indian characters, he chose Rajeev to film their journey. Elaborating on their working style, he says although both of them talk little, they understand each other well.

Prasanna emphasises that he is happy that Paradise is being presented by Mani Ratnam’s Madras Talkies. Recalling that he was supposed to work as a line producer for Ponniyan Selvan, he says some parts of the movie was supposed to be shot in Sri Lanka. The pandemic prevented that.

“I helped with a little dubbing for some of the dialogues in Sinhala. Then he (Mani Ratnam) saw Gaadi and said he liked it. Later, Madras Talkies graciously agreed to present Paradise under their banner. It is a very big thing for me. Giving his banner gives a kind of validity for the film.”

On the anvil

For his next project, the 61-year-old auteur returns to Russian novelist Dostoevsky for inspiration. He had adapted the author’s short story, The Meek One as With You, Without You (2012). This time around, he plans to adapt the author’s short novel The Gambler for a movie set in present-day Colombo. He explains: “But for Goa, gambling is not allowed in India. On Fridays, casinos in Colombo are packed with Malayalis. My script will centre on that. I am still working on it.”

He adds that he is also working on an original script, about a Malayali on a journey, not only to Sri Lanka but to many places in the world.