TV Times

TV Times

‘Guerrilla Marketing’ ready for market
Jayantha Chandrasiri’s latest directorial effort ‘Guerilla Marketing’ will be released from May, 13 at CEL circuit. The film comprises a star cast including Kamal Addararachchi, Yashoda Wimaladharma, Sangeetha Weeraratne, Jackson Anthony, Sriyantha Mendis, Priyankara Ratnayake and many others.

Suramya Mahakehelwala and Thisara Dissanayake are cousins who belong to a family that has for generations practiced the art of traditional Kandyan Dancing. They are childhood sweethearts.

When the film begins with Suramya and Thisara work for a reputed advertising agency. Their love for each other is a secret that the world knows nothing of. Rangi Dissanayake is Thisara’s wife. There are many things about Thisara that his wife knows nothing about, but which Suramya is aware of. Among these is the fact that Thisara, while still a teenager, was diagnosed with Schizophrenia. She also knows that he left her to marry Rangi, who came from an urban, upper class family, in order to deny his rural and traditional background.

Thisara, who demonstrates exceptional creativity, soon rises to the top of the advertising industry “Gregory Mahadikaram, a prominent politician, recognizes his extraordinary capabilities and entrusts him with the task of promoting his presidential campaign.

Thisara and Gregory are almost made for each other, the former being an escapee from “tradition” and the latter someone who has embraced uncritically and happily the processes and policies of globalisation, which include and results in the obliteration of tradition.

Thisara proposes a novel campaign strategy, rejecting the traditional paths taken by politicians running for office and their campaign strategies. His has a strategy of training a group of young men and women and employing them to spread outrageous rumours, stories that show Mahadikaram in the most positive light.

Thisara works tirelessly and this takes a toll on him at the height of the election campaign. His illness surfaces once again. Consequently he begins to hallucinate. According to current medical knowledge, the negative expression of hallucinatory conditions can render patients utterly helpless. This is the condition that Thisara suffers from.

The one image that dominates his hallucination is Gregory Mahadikaram, who “comes out of the television” to talk with him, walks into his bedroom etc. Thisara is admitted into a mental hospital. While spending all his time with the negative hallucination of Gregory, in real life ‘Gregory is elected president. An astute psychiatrist identifies the source of “Gregory’s illness” and with his help, Thisara attempts to replace the negative hallucinations associated with Gregory, with the positive hallucinations regarding his childhood sweetheart Suramya and the idyllic past associated with her. He does his best to evict Gregory from his mind.

One day, President Mahadikaram visits his friend Thisara in hospital. Thisara, who is struggling to overcome his negative hallucinations, chases the real-life Gregory from the hospital and with this, the negative elements of his hallucination.

He then leaves the hospital his condition partially alleviated, with Rangi and the positive hallucinations he retains about Suramya and everything she represents.

Maestro Premasiri Khemadasa has written the score for the ‘Guerrilla Marketing’. Editing by Ravindra Guruge and cinematography by Ruwan Costa, art directors are Jagath Imbulpe (background) and Kumara Karawdeniya (costume) and Choreography by Channa Wijewardena. Story, dialogue, screenplay and direction by Jayantha Chandrasiri.

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