Ira Mediyama: real life and realpolitik
"Ira Mediyama'' veers completely clear of the formulaic art movie. There isn't a story here at all -- the movie is a triptych of tales told about different people's lives colliding with the country's conflict.

I was desperately looking for the dog to earn a film credit. It seems unfair that blurb writers go into rhapsodies over human actors, but do not give an honourable mention to a canine that turns in such a brilliant performance.

But that is only incidental. Ira Mediyama, Prassanna Vidanange's second noteworthy directorial effort now playing at the Majestic jogged my mind, and on the journey back home made me think two kinds of people that exist in our community. Those who believe that art belongs to the anarchists say that movies such as Ira Mediyama are appeasenik efforts that are either sponsored or cheered on by the peace lobby.

Still another category believes that art does not imitate life and that a war movie of this genre can only be an approximation of reality.

The movie comes at a time when the political reality would railroad many, even the most reluctant to re-think their version of the issues. When Bill Clinton was here, they pricked up their ears to listen to him -- no double entendre intended. ('The Island' carried a front page picture of Clinton wielding a screwdriver, giving finishing touches to a tsunami victim's house, cannily headlined "Clinton shows what he can do best.'' I shall offer no further elaboration on that.)

People pricked up their ears and listened to Clinton claming "the government of Sri Lanka should work with the LTTE on the subject of tsunami rehabilitation." He then gave his statement some Presidential graivtas by saying that in his experience, problem solving has always been easier when people worked together, whether this has been in 'Northern Ireland or elsewhere.''

When this writer asked President Kumaratunga at a post tsunami briefing whether she would consider a summit between Velupillai Prabhkaran and herself on the worst ever human disaster in this country, the Head of State seemed to be a little taken aback, and some fellow journalists a little peeved. No doubt, the question on a leader's summit was exaggerated mischief. The idea was to ascertain whether the government will work with the LTTE purely in the interests of thousands of traumatized and destitute people.

It was an idea that did not resonate. But yet, when Bill Clinton says that the government should work with the LTTE, there is a flutter even in the airy corridors of power.

So that's the dynamic of conflict resolution in the country. You are supposed to be deft with any suggestions made by the ‘local’, while worshipping the foreigner who makes the same proposition.

Sri Lanka must be an opinion maker's heaven because for everybody who wants to spin the facts, there is a mass of opinion-takers who are ready and willing to be 'spun'' by the spin. It takes a movie like Ira Mediyama to cut through the spin, and lay the conflict exposed to the bare bones.

Ira Mediyama’s impact will also be subject to the savagery of the spin doctors. But, it is a movie that improves on unpalatable reality by retelling the experience of war faithfully, until the last dog dies. Its strength is in being utterly, almost distractingly real.

When reality knocks on the door its hard not to collude with it. Which is why this review interleaves with the evolving political script, for instance, on the question of whether working with the LTTE is a political imperative of the day? Some political analysts say that we should make an example of George Bush Snr., and Bill Clinton. Here are two tooth and nail enemies who have buried their mutual animosity for a good cause.

These analysts' mentor-morale is to say ''why can't our opposition and government work together similarly, to trip up the LTTE?''

It's hard not to be bemused. Somehow the idea that it's the LTTE and the government which should work together at least in some instances to defeat the subversion of the foreign intervenient, is and idea that flies under these people's radar. They just do not get it.

That's different from saying that the LTTE's humbuggery should not be exposed. Ira Mediyama for instance, takes us through the impersonal humiliations of the war-time checkpoint.

When the LTTE issues quit orders to Muslims in a predominantly tradesman's village close to Kalpitiya, Hassan (A. A. Mansoor) his son Arafath (Mohamed Rahfiulah) and his wife Jameelah (Rajeena Begum) take a three wheeler ride with the dog Rex (????) following them with (an expertly cinematographed) dogged insistence. "Muslims do not rear dogs,'' says the father to the son who tries every ruse in the book to get the animal on board.

The Muslim exodus meets with Tiger recalcitrance at the checkpoint. A woman who looks every headscarf inch the typical Sri Lankan Tamil speaking Muslim, attempts to smuggle some currency notes concealed in a radio. Though the radio passes the female Tiger cadre's scrutiny, its backflap clasp comes off when the woman turns around to leave. All the money is confiscated, as per Prabhakran's orders. The woman curses and summons "seven balls of thunder'' on the Tiger functionary who grabs her life's savings.

In this way, Ira Mediyama is unrelenting in its appraisal of the fascism and terror, and is hardly the appeasenik movie of the archetype. The director also takes Nimmi Harasgama right out of Colombo's avant garde English stage milieu, and makes a character actor of her that would put to shame some of the Sinhala cinema's more experienced female leads.

War isn't the result of the absurd -- it is the absurd. Therefore those who romanticize notions of untouchability (Tigers are untouchable, even to do tsunami relief work with…) would get a jolt from the type of social commentary offered by Ira Mediyama. It entourages people to take the spin out of appeasing the Tigers as well as the spin out of demonizing them.

Of course there is nothing to demonize about the Tiger - - the LTTE is the demon, a good deal of the time. But, the reality is that there can be a 'But'' to that; it's better to work with the unreasonable and unrelenting element, sometimes, especially when the spin comes to you from all sides. Some say that over a thousand ceasefire violations by the LTTE as opposed to hundred-something by the forces, is not a statistic that is dripping with any particular meaning. It should be treated dispassionately, as a number, they advise. That sort of rationalization is not mere spin - it is doosra.

Perhaps, then, in the age when war is fought in the media, the unimpressionable mind's response should be to avert the spin on all sides, and leaven the reality - which is that war is dehumanizing, as Ira Mediyama tells the viewer. Some price may be paid to avoid it, though not any cost.

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