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Tampoe’s role in Lanka’s evolving silver screen

Book facts: Robin Tampoe ‘Last of the Big Ones’ by Vilasnee Tampoe Hautin (Tower Hall Theatre Foundation). Reviewed by Royston Ellis

To read this book is to enter into a world of make believe, not surprisingly since it is about Robin Tampoe, one of Sri Lanka’s foremost film producers and directors, but it also reveals a world of injustice and insecurity.

A book, even a biography written by one of the subject’s children, as this is, needs tension to make it interesting, and it has that aplenty. The reader learns of the rise and fall of a big man in the film industry and is happy to discover at the end of the book that, even though Tampoe died – perhaps disappointed - in 2000, he is respected again now for his life as well as his work.

It’s only on page 59 that we learn that Rabindra Coomaraswarmy Tampoe, or Robin Tampoe as he was later known, was born in Jaffna on December 29, 1930. The author, his daughter Vilasnee Tampoe, assumes the reader will already be familiar with her father and begins her book with an engaging preface and revealing tributes to him from Dr Lester James Peries, Dr Tissa Abeysekera and Dr Diogu B Nihalsinghe before a pivotal opening chapter entitled ‘Of Ethnic Battles, Truces and a National Cinema”. The preface reveals the author’s charming way with words in such phrases as: “In the fascinating, intricate lattice of the cinema web, he moved shoulder-to-shoulder with a host of people from artistes and technicians to peers and ministers, each weaving a silken thread to add to the whole, getting enmeshed in this treacherous, albeit velvet web.”

There is a disturbing undercurrent to this book, reflected in the author’s words: “It was in this climate of shifting political allegiances, conflicting ideologies, and linguistic nationalism that the Sri Lankan cinema was born, evolving into a Sinhala-speaking cinema. At a time when ethnic feelings were high, a Sri Lankan Tamil making Sinhala films was an interesting mix.”

‘Interesting’ is an understatement for the obstacles Tampoe encountered that are referred to in these pages. Tissa Abeysekera recalls: “It was during this twilight period of the Sinhala cinema – though founded and maintained by Tamils, it was primarily a Sinhala speaking cinema – that Robin Tampoe entered the scene. He looked more a movie star than a producer, and he came from high-pedigreed stock, the McGowan Tampoes of colonial Jaffna.”

He adds: “The cinema of Robin Tampoe was essentially populist, and aimed at mass entertainment.”
How Tampoe succeeded against formidable odds and at a time when Ceylon was itself evolving into Sri Lanka, brings the page-turning tension to this book. It is sprinkled with the author’s lively observations, such as: “Successive waves of colonisation only put the lid on a boiling cauldron which after the occasional hiss and spurt, finally spilled over with the departure of the last of the colonials.”

Tampoe’s first cinematic venture, before he began making films, was a tent in the Vavuniya area showing films and – after a brilliant but turbulent career as a film maker - he organised the Sinhala Film Festival held in Jaffna in 1978. The book touches on his other ventures, some (such as his passion for vintage automobiles) begun out of enthusiasm, while others were started through necessity when his success and income as a film maker declined. As another daughter, Thiranee, adds in a postscript to the book, “He would talk about the injustice and unfairness he had to face and overcome daily, but he was never one to give up.”Vilasnee Tampoe Hautin is perceptive and understanding in detailing her father’s life. “Film making,” she writes, “is no easy task. The profession is as exacting as it is exciting.” Later, saying that Sri Lanka is now a global village, she cautions: “But globalisation, with its potential to erase markers of cultural identity, actually exacerbates ethno consciousness, as people fear the loss of tradition and culture.”

Robin Tampoe’s life and background are outlined in the chapter ‘Of Ancestors and Family’ before the author swings into a detailed Filmography. The first paragraph of this states, “Robin’s career began in 1955. His works spanned 45 years until his death in 2000. All his 35mm films were made between 1956 and 1974. He made one teledrama in 1996 which was never released for want of sponsorship.” Cinema addicts can renew their acquaintance in these pages with Suhada Divi Piduma, said to have boosted the sale of handkerchiefs near cinemas screening it, and the filmed narrative poem Sudo Sudu starring Gamini Fonseka.

Other chapters look at ‘A Pioneer, A Self-Made Man, An Entrepreneur’ and cover ‘Culture From Books,’ ‘Cinemas and Studios’, ‘The First Festival of Sinhala Films in Jaffna and Ice Factory Adventures’ and ‘The Nineties or New Decade with a forum to voice his views’. The book concludes with a chapter that is a sincere appreciation of his friends, associates and other personalities, and their influence on Robin Tampoe – and he on them.

This fascinating biography is a global collaboration. The author, who left Sri Lanka in 1980, lives on Reunion Island, a French Overseas Department, where she is preparing a doctoral thesis on the Sri Lankan cinema. The Conseil Regional de la Reunion provided financial support for its publication. A photograph of Mrs Rita Tampoe, Robin’s wife and the author’s mother, appears on the flyleaf and she is acknowledged touchingly as “a real living primary source, rare as they come.” Most of the hundreds of illustrations come from her collection and have been incorporated in the book with skill by the designers, BT Options of Colombo.

With 236 pages packed with inside information about the formative years of Sri Lankan cinema as well as with stories only Tampoe family members would know, this book is an enthralling testimony to a man who may well be “The last of the big ones”.

 
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