Appreciations

Tribute to a documentary visionary

Pragnasoma Hettiarachchi

I use the word 'disturbed' because we never had the chance to meet him during the years of 'happy exile' as he had won the American lottery, thus qualifying for immigrant status in the US. 

His leaving the country was ironical, in a manner of speaking, for few if any had celebrated on celluloid, the beauty of his country with the same gentle lyricism and that deceptive simplicity that elude most of us in our documentary films. He was the poet of the simple, ordinary folk, the traditional craftsmen, the mask-makers, the dancers, the potters, the mat-weavers, the migrant fishermen as well as the heart stopping loveliness of the seascapes and landscapes of our island home.

I first met Hetti in the editorial of the Times of Ceylon London office in Blackfriars House at the far end of Fleet Street in the early 1950s. He was working in a photographic studio in Central London, but his heart was really in the cinema. Though I was a staff writer (we were only two on the staff — the editor and myself), Hetti had heard of my success as an amateur film-maker and he wondered whether I could help in smuggling him into a professional studio. At that time, the film unions were all-powerful and imposed strict restrictions on foreigners joining an industry which, as is generally the case with the British film industry, was in a state of permanent crisis.

I happened to know the manager of Merton Park Studios - one of the smaller studios in London. If I remember right it was a Mr. Williams and through his good offices we got Hetti a trainee apprentice's job. 

At the time, Hetti was married to the charming French girl, Collette. For the record, she deserves a minor footnote in the history of film-making in Sri Lanka as she was responsible for translating the dialogue of 'Rekava' from English to French in time for the International Film Festival at Cannes in 1957. 

I would like to think that Hetti's job was both rewarding as practical experience - and the stepping stone to something he could never have dreamt of. Destiny has agendas for us, all which we are blissfully ignorant. 

Hetti had impressed the studio manager with his quiet, unobtrusive efficiency. At the same time, the celebrated documentary director Ralph Keene had been appointed chief producer of the Ceylon Government Film Unit (GFU). Advertisements had appeared in the newspapers for assistant directors. Hetti applied, backed by a superlative testimonial from Mr. Williams. By one of those strange coincidences by which fate works out her stratagems, Keene had not only worked at Merton Park Studios, but was a close personal friend of Mr. Williams. Hetti was appointed sight unseen — and before long Hetti and Collette were on their way back to Sri Lanka.

Though Keene was determined to get me down, mine was a very difficult choice. My six years in London were some of the happiest years of my life. John Hockin, my Editor was a kingly man, though like all editors, he could be very demanding, expecting total commitment on the job — reporting, feature writing, news. He was even persuasive enough to have me write a gossip column in the style of Time Magazine. I was also appalled at the very thought of working in a government department. 

How Keene persuaded me to abandon a profession with a reasonable sterling salary for a paltry Rs. 404 job is another story. Little did I know at the time that it was the wisest decision I had ever made.

The period under the stewardship of Keene was the beginning of a golden era in Sri Lanka's history of documentary film-making and Hetti, one could state with no fear of contradiction, was to emerge from our apprenticeship, under a great British master of the documentary genre, as the outstanding talent.

Without our being consciously aware of it, we were being trained in the finest traditions of British documentary. In a disused Nissan hut, once a temporary cinema shed for the R.A.F. during the war, in Velona, Moratuwa, headquarters of the GFU, a group of young film-makers were to emerge, radically changing the style of documentary film-making in Ceylon. Foremost among them was Hetti. 

Winner of the Golden Mercury twice in Venice, his films are the finest legacy of a period during which the Ceylon documentary was on a par with the rest of the world. 

George Wickremasinghe's 'Fishermen of Negombo' produced and written by Keene himself made the shortlist as one of the 10 Best Films in the World. Hetti's 'Makers, Motives and Materials' with Reggi Siriwardena's superb script and Hussein Mohamed's haunting musical score was a multi-award winner; so was his 'Rhythms of the People' and a 'Centenary of Tea'. 

Irwin Dissanayake's 'The Living Wild' has rarely if ever been surpassed as a major wildlife epic. Titus Thotawatte, though an apprentice, displayed a virtuosity in editing that was to turn him into a major figure in feature film-making. Vincent Perera replaced Bob Navarro as cameraman on Keene's own prize-winning film 'Nelungama' on which all three of us, Hetti, Irwin and myself worked as his assistants.

As a person, Hetti was modest, unassuming, completely devoid of any intellectual pretensions. He never aspired to be an aesthete - it was foreign to his very nature. Not for him the complex theories of the Grierson-Rotha school of documentary. He was incapable of verbal explosion. 

Once at a key interview (the new GFU director was to be selected), Hetti was the most senior candidate. The chairman of the panel asked him what inspired him to create 'Makers, Motives & Materials', his masterpiece. He looked around rather helplessly and said, "But I can't say it in words", not a bad definition of cinema. He spoke in images. 

Their lyricism, their evocative power came from within — from his love of ordinary people, his purity of vision, his feeling for the landscapes and seascapes of our island home. 

The sensibility that helped him create his best films was that of the great traditional craftsman who created things of beauty, not out of a set of aesthetic principles, but almost intuitively.

Just before he retired he was appointed GFU director, a position he uncharacteristically worked hard at, to make sure he would not be ignored the second time. But I doubt whether he was happy as an administrator. Nor did a later stint at Rupavahini quite measure up to his delicate visual sense. He was a balladeer, not a purveyor of manufactured entertainment.

I always think back with an aching nostalgia, when our group of 1952, Hetti, Vincent Perera, documentary's finest cameraman, Willie Blake, Irwin Dissanayake, Titus Thotawatte crammed into my little cubicle, which was an apology for an office, all assistants, meeting to dream the impossible dream of that period: of ushering in a great era of documentary and feature films for Sri Lanka. 

Hetti was one of that visionary band that helped those dreams to become reality.

Hetti was 73 at the time of his death in a New York hospital. He was married twice — by his first wife Collette, he had a son and daughter who live in London. 

He then married Cecily, a vice principal of a school. They had two sons - Nandana who gave an extremely effective performance as the little boy Upali in Madol Duwa, Martin Wickremasinghe's classic novel of childhood. He is now a purser on SriLankan Airlines. 

The second son Prasanna is with Bates Advertising Company. Nearly all were present in New York to pay their last respects.

Could there be a more moving tribute to an exceptional man?

Lester James Peries 

He lives in our hearts

SriLal Pereira 

SriLal Pereira born on February 8, 1940 was the son of Lionel and Grace Pereira. He studied at St. Peter's College, Bambalapitiya and actively took apart in sports. Boxing was his favourite and he won several awards and certificates. He was also a ruggerite. When I was engaged in parish activities, he came to reside at St. Mary's Road, Mount Lavinia in 1989 and I made his acquaintance. 

He proved himself a devoted Catholic helping the poor through the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Our friendship blossomed with the formation of the St. Mary's Road Residents' Association in which he functioned as the chief co-ordinator of the health and sanitary committee. Through his enthusiasm, he persuaded the health authorities of the MOH office to conduct an anti-filaria campaign in the area. He was popular among the members because of his simplicity and amiability. 

His untimely death on October 7, 1996 cast a gloom among the residents. 

At the time of his death, he was the Director Marketing and Public Relations at Caves Marketing Services Ltd, where his work was highly appreciated. 

His subordinates openly wept remarking, "We have lost our father". Such was the love and respect they had for him. 

He was a Rotarian in the Mount Lavinia Club for a number of years and held the posts of secretary, treasurer and president at different times. 

A remarkable feature of his life was that if he noticed anyone with some talent, be it music, journalism or any other, he would ungrudgingly help them even granting financial support. 

The large number of mourners who filed past his remains at his home and the vast crowd that attended his funeral are testimony to the love and respect he was held in. 

Those of us who knew him very closely will miss him greatly but will always remember him with love and gratitude. Although he has left us, the memories will linger forever. "To live in the hearts of those whom he has left behind is not to die." 

He was a loving and devoted husband to Malini and friend and father to his son and two daughters. 

May his soul rest in peace!

K. Michael De Silva

She was a messenger

Chelvi Mathiaparanam

Some of these messengers we call prophets and saints, while others have been our parents, teachers, friends, colleagues, students and children. Our lives would have been less exciting, abundant and significant without them. 

In my life of seven decades, I have been blessed with the fellowship of such a messenger who came as Chelvi Mathiaparanam.

Accomplishment and beauty were personified in her. She gracefully strode the portals of Jaffna College graduating at 19 with added accomplishments in music, drama, oratory and literary skills. 

There was a polished sparkle in Chelvi's conversation. Her gentle fingers glided over the keys of the piano refreshing faint hearts and spirits and stimulating the aesthetic talents of her students. 

She was a dedicated teacher par excellence following in the footsteps of her noble father and erudite grandfathers. 

The storms of life and age never had a chance to mar her poise or her pleasant youthful demeanour. 

May her loved ones find peace and solace in God and in the cherished memory of their beloved sister. We are comforted over Chelvi finding eternal rest in the presence of her Lord.

Rajan Kadirgamar
Principal Emeritus,
Jaffna College