Ceylon (film)

Ceylon (Inam in Tamil ^[1]) is a 2013 Indian film written, directed, filmed and produced by Santosh Sivan. The story revolves around a group of teenagers in an orphanage set during the civil war in Sri Lanka. The film premiered at the 2013 Busan International Film Festival.^[2]

Cast

• S. Karan as Nandan
• Sugandha Ram as Rajini
• Saritha as Tsunami Akka
• Karunas as Stanley
• Shyam Sundar
• Soumya Sadanand
• Vikram Chakravarti

Production

In 2009, it was first reported that Santhosh Sivan's next film would be "a hard-hitting political film scripted around the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of TAMIL Eelam)-related strife and the death of its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran".^[3] In June 2012 then he stated "in Ceylon I want to look at the Sri Lankan situation from the perspective of a bunch of youngsters who get caught in the crisis. It's more about the outsiders' response to the horrors than about the politics".^[4] He also told that he will shoot in Sri Lanka after the rains and that he didn't want "Ceylon to look like a tourist's attraction".^[4] Sivan described Ceylon as his pet-project.^[5]

Santosh Sivan later said that the film was about "a bunch of teenagers in an orphanage, and set against the backdrop of a civil strife".^[6] One of the teenagers, the protagonist was a 16-year-old boy, Karan, with Down's Syndrome ^[1] with whom Sivan spent nine months before shooting the film.^[7] Sugandha Ram, who acted in Tere Bin Laden before, was chosen to select the female lead.^[8] It was reported that Saritha played the role of a person who runs the orphanage.^[6] According to Sivan, the idea for the film was conceived over a Sri Lankan lunch with a friend during which they met a lady who ran an orphanage in Sri Lanka.^[9] Sivan wanted director Stanley for a role, but cast Karunas for it since he could also sing. Karunas was said to have done a serious role unlike his usual comic self.^[8] Sivan stated, "my film is about human aspirations and emotions shattered by the war, not about the politics behind it".^[10] He also clarified the film will have nothing to do with the LTTE.^[11] Sivan spent months researching and getting footage for the film.^[12] He shot it in Tamil as Inam but also made the film into English for a larger audience and titled it Ceylon.^[9] The Tamil version was longer and included songs, scenes for comic relief and the making of the film over end credits and the English version Sivan said "is much tighter".^[8]

The film was shot by Sivan himself in Kerala^[1] with a Red Epic digital camera.^[7] Since he could not go for many takes, three or four cameras were used at the same time.^[8] Though he used a high-end digital camera he said that he purposely made the shots look candid as if they had been captured through a mobile phone or a hand-held camera ^[13] as he found out that mobile phones played an important role in the Sri Lankan wars.^[9] Editor Suresh was also asked "to keep all good-looking shots aside" as Sivan felt that the film "should be raw and rustic" and not beautiful.^[13]

The first look resembling a blood splattered fingerprint forming the map of Sri Lanka, which was designed by Jairam Posterwala, was revealed in June 2013.^[14] Arvind Swamy provided a voice-over for the film.^[15] The film was cleared by the Censor Board with a clean U certificate in October 2013.^[16]

Music

Vishal Chandrasekhar was signed as the music director. Sivan stated that "the background score is heart thumping" since it was a thriller film, but that a Baila, and "a few romantic numbers, treaded in a different way" were also included.^[9]

Release

The film was screened at the 18th Busan International Film Festival.^[17][18] The Hollywood Reporter in its review wrote, "Romancing in slow-motion; musical numbers ill-fitting the narrative flow; high-octane shootouts laced with the odd comic touch; a highly-strung, tragic final half hour intended to stir emotions -- Santosh Sivan’s latest offering boasts of all the hallmarks of commercial Indian cinema, which should allow the Kerala-born director to continue the fine run he has had in the past few years...but more focus and context would have helped the film live up to its seemingly more historical-epic title of Ceylon".^[19]

References