To a few commentators, do please pay us the courtesy of spelling our last name right – it’s Sandrasagra, no extra “a”. Small detail, I know.

I don’t usually read/comment on web forums, so excuse the possible inarticulacy, and my very late foray into this long-extinct discussion. I do feel I need to comment, having seen the documentary in its various stages pre- and post- production and as a fair amount of comment seems to have been generated by Manik.

I want to belatedly congratulate Sam. Well done, my friend.

In response to Justin – when you decide to walk from Jaffna to Kataragama on pilgrimage, sleep on the same mats as beggars and pilgrims, or get an entire area of degraded forest protected, re-forested and declared a sanctuary at your own personal expense – then knock yourself out commenting on the Grand Vitara precluding environmental activism, my friend! It’s not everyone that can afford a Prius or similar, and it’s fairly unlikely that if they could, they would take it off-road in the wilds of the Sinharajah, Okanda or Ampara!

My belief is that there is no place for vilification in film critique – avoid personal invective in the interests of verisimilitude. I’d think personal response, artistic evaluation and technical commentary would be more valuable to the film-maker, and the public. But that’s just my opinion! Apart from the random rants in question, however, there is so much valuable and interesting critique and opinion here. Wish I’d had a look at this sooner.

I admit I’m opening myself to accusations of bias, as I am not going to comment on the documentary, but so many have articulated their ideas so eloquently already, I feel my opinion would be redundant. My opinion on the comments made on my father, however, is not.

Manik was a man who lived his philosophy – as contradictory as that might appear to the uninitiated – if you didn’t know him well, try and suspend your judgement, as you really didn’t know the story.

“Towering” over the documentary – well, he was a man who refused to censor himself. He was articulate and passionate, so he did tend to tower. I think if Sam edited him out further; the comments would have been the same. Such was the man.

“Self-aggrandizing sound bytes” aside (ooh he clearly offended some sensibilities) – his propensity to say exactly what he thought, truly terrified us at various points in his life. He powered on, however, and held forth with a wealth of personal experience to add authority to his observations. Unlike many of his detractors.

Sri Lanka is truly a land of the brave, as well as a land of the wise.
“The faint-hearted? They can leave.” I like that line too, and it’s true.

It takes immense courage to live in Sri Lanka and be a truly free spirit. Thank heavens our country still has an intelligentsia, a talented community of artists, social commentators and people with spark, passion and joie de vivre – who in the face of the odds and the detractors – continue keep our flag blowing in the wind. Best of luck to all of you survivors, you know who you are. Haro Hara!

I’m no film critic, but I am someone that is deeply interested in Sri Lanka and it’s future, and deeply interested in Peace as i’m sure many of the people who have posted their comments here. I found Sam’s documentary “Circles of Violence” a very nice piece of work. It tackled a very difficult topic, the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. I thought it gave a reasonably accurate overview of the historical events in the conflict, with some interesting footage that I personally hadn’t seen before.

The biggest success for me, in the film was that it created another platform for discussion about a problem that really isn’t discussed much amongst people, particularly amongst people who could have potentially differing views. Unfortunately it is this discussion between divergent minds, rather than convergent minds, which is really what is need in promoting the harmony that dissolves conflict. One can be skeptical of the value of the discussion that has been generated, who was the audience at barefoot etc – but the bottom line is that discussion resulted from the documentary, and is continuing to occur.

After the film screening there were some interesting points raised. It was sad that the 5 people (as was mentioned here in this blog by somebody else) couldn’t stick around for the post doco discussion, because it was a well run session, and everyone’s contribution was important. Some of the more mature members of the audience commented on the issue of the screening occurring in barefoot, to a crowd that wasn’t representative of the Sri Lankan population at large. This comment was nicely met with further information about how some people who actually came to barefoot (although probably not the majority) actually did work with rural communities and there is more than meets the eye. There is often more than meets the eye. Other people commented that there could have been more personal stories of suffering represented in the film, some shared their experiences of not belonging in Sri Lankan society, or despair at the misinformation of their children. But most importantly, despite the personal views on the film or what the film represented to individuals, there seemed to be a common theme of volition for the countries problems to be solved. There was a postive feeling of hope for this country, and concern for the people of the country, all its people.

Now this could just be my delusional interpretation of the events that occurred at the post film discussion, but if there was more to it than that – then this film had already been able to achieve something in 2007 that is greatly needed. It is by no means the only form of “stimulation of thought” that it is out there – but it is thought stimulation all the same, and it reached everyone of you who either posted your comments here or are even reading this now.

I believe that it would be a shame to stop here and I believe a translation into Sinhala and Tamil would be a next step to show it to a wider audience, again to promote further discussion. One comment I must make about this “ground views” discussion blog is i’m glad to see that talk is not the kind of extreme views that one see’s depicted on many major news website discussion pages where people are just shouting abuse blame and unleashing anger on each other. The criticism here seems constructive and there appears to be a two way dialog with both or multiple parties expanding their views.

So Well done Sam, thanks for taking the plunge, and putting yourself and your work out there – in my opinion, at least, you’ve produced a vehicle (no matter how imperfect it may be) that has great “potential”.

Bishan

PS – My suggestion for the ground view critics – keep the ideas flowing – it doesn’t matter even if they are coming from poorly informed, so called “brats” as one commentator suggested – for then it is then the responsibility of the better informed to inform the less informed of their impression of the truth! And i thank that particular person for that particular viewpoint which i enjoyed reading 🙂

The opinions expressed were also different from often repeated mantras.

These urban brats have demonstrated their ignorance of all matters Sri Lankan while also displaying their hatred of a traditional Buddhist perspective that was articulated in the documentary by Manik Sandrasagara.

These vociferous brats talk to each other using computers hoping that somebody will listen to their unsolicited drivel. Out of place everywhere and at home nowhere these kids must be the bane of their parents lives who have to support their uselessness.

Don’t these kids know that anyone who takes themselves too seriously are laughed at gently till they wake up? Have they not been taught that all concievable information on the planet is opinion of varying degrees of reliability? Have they never heard of Kalki?

As for Sam his only fault was his invitation list. An educated and adult opinion is what he needed and instead of that he has obtained the comments of young bloggers who have all the time in the world to talk to each other on the net. Greed, Hatred and Envy – it is all there in many of the responses. Only a few folk have risen above the drivel

Sri Lanka had a vibrant documentary film scene with origins prior to the television age. Some film makers bagged a few international awards. A few managed to transition successfully to television/video in the 80s. A lot of them are/were part of the local (ie Sinhala language) film industry (assuming that there is one now). They produced work with a fairly high degree of technical and artistic standard despite the third world conditions. Perhaps that generation is harder to locate these days.

Like a lot of positive things in Sri Lanka, their achievements are not very well documented. A starting point might be this
book (link to a Sunday times article) which at least might list some names. Interestingly, the author got his international break with a documentary in 1965.

The debate of residual savings between the SUV and the computer. The insignificance of the difference.

It’s an event.

The culturally alienated microchip generation, out of place everywhere, at home no where. Tomorrow’s pseudo environmental stewards.

In terms of content and the rest of it, I was talking to a couple of people about it afterwards, and one of the key complaints was that though it was billed as more of a “personal journey”, this aspect of the documentary was a bit thin. Perhaps it could have been a bit more personal (if that’s what it was supposed to do), with some more information on the film maker and how who he is, in relation to Sri Lanka (e.g. his family roots, linguistic and western background etc) sets the context to the various emphases of the film. An exploration on how the diaspora views from Australia that may have shaped his thoughts, understanding and curiosity, and may have acted as an impetus for him to rediscover these issues for himself, for example, would have been interesting. That might have given it more of an original spin that set it apart from the usual “O.K., so the Sinhala Only Act happened, people got progressively more pissed off, in between this that and the other there was the JVP, lots of armed Tamil groups popped up, 83 happened – blood guts and misery, fill in the blanks and gosh here we are and it’s all ‘effing terrible, why God why?” kind of storyline that is usually presented.

I agree with many of the comments on the choice of interviewees being a little disorienting. Again, I guess this is a reflection of Sam’s experiences and exposure to various people and social scenes during his time in the country. However, to someone who is unfamiliar with Sri Lanka, this may not be immediately obvious, so perhaps presenting a clearer argument within the documentary for why certain people were chosen/dominated would be useful. Again, this would lend greater weight to the “personal journey” spin of the documentary.

All said and done, it was a brave attempt of putting his thoughts on celluloid (figuratively speaking – I s’pose it’s all digital) – especially given the fact that this blog grilling was inevitable, but some of the criticisms made in the comments on this post are fair, so it is good for the film maker to consider them. I think in terms of serving as an overview of the current situation in Sri Lanka to a foreign audience, it will do a decent enough job (though earlier comments in this post on presenting a broader spectrum of views may have some truth to them). Anyway, as a friend said to me over dinner the other night, the erudite Colombo middle classes do like to bitch and whinge and tear holes in things, but when do they ever get up off their arses and actually do something they believe is important – put themselves in the line of fire? Well, that was just his point of view, but there is something to be said about the effort and conviction (whether you think it is slightly misplaced or not) of putting this film together, and that in itself is impressive. I don’t know if Sam’s made any other documentaries, but this was an admirable first/early shot for a one man team and I hope he continues to develop his skills further.

g

ps- I get what sam is saying about being more interested in technical criticism from Aus, as the film making scene is far more advanced there. That’s just a fact. I don’t think he’s being a sahib bootlicker for saying it!