The blood-stained fingerprint of a land ravaged by war and hatred. The first look of Santosh Sivan’s Ceylon jolts you out of your reverie and takes you straight to the war-torn Sri Lanka and its bleeding destiny. Coming from the maker of Tahaan and The Terrorist the film is expected to be a poignant account of the island’s woes. “It’s about a group of orphaned teenagers caught in the wildfire of Lankan civil war. The film is told from the perspective of a person who’s likely to become a refugee. They are a bunch of people with a strange impulse for survival as nothing material can bail them out of the nemesis. Their experience is captured against the backdrop of the war,” says Santosh.
He says Ceylon didn’t happen all of a sudden as he got the spark of the film a couple of years back. “It’s a very humane story with a universal appeal. You can relate to it very easily as it can be about any place where there is a conflict.” The film gives an unbiased picture of the bloodshed in the country and is told from an insider’s view point. “The two forces involved in a war have very subjective rights and wrongs. The two sides will be fighting for their own rights. It’s very convenient to take one side, so rather than taking sides I have tried to record it through the eyes of people who are in the midst of it,” he says.
Santosh’s last outing in Malayalam was the spectacular period saga Urumi and the filmmaker says he loves toying with genres. “I started off with children’s films and then switched to period films and fantasy-oriented films. Later I started making real-life films dealing with hardcore realities like war and terrorism. I don’t confine myself to any particular style or subject.”
Since he practises the visual language his work is never confined to variables of space. “I am happy that I have a parallel career as a cinematographer which takes care of me so that I can explore more possibilities as a filmmaker,” says Santosh who is the first cinematographer in Asia Pacific to get a membership in the prestigious American Society of Cinematographers (ASC). “I don’t normally tend to go into formula films, but at the same time I am not consciously trying to create an aura of an art film or commercial film. And fortunately I am able to fund this films too. When I am experimenting I put my own money and don’t expect anyone else to do that. But when a lot more investment and star value is involved I might try to make it a little more mainstream,” he adds.
For him his films are a medium to relive moments that have touched his life ranging from fairy-tales to real-life incidents. “My childhood experiences, ghost stories my granny narrated, the trekking trips my father took me on - they all have influenced the artist in me. Every creative work has a point of origin and in my case it’s my life that does the initiation,” he says.
He says his latest documentary Oru Kuttanadan Karshakan, screened at the ongoing International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, is all about how we leave behind our heritage and culture. “You must be a city-bred software engineer, but some framer somewhere has sweated it out for the food you eat. Today nobody wants to be a framer and customs and practices related to agriculture have become extinct.” The docu-feature captures in vivid detail the past and present of Kuttanad. “In Kuttanad they used huge wheels to empty water from fields. Now these chakrams have disappeared and are replaced by motors. So here is two frames in contrast - first the farmer manually pedalling the chakram and singing, second the automated buzzing of the machine,” he says.
Going by his filmography one might feel that his presence in Malayalam has become limited lately, but the filmmaker says he has not made any conscious decision to concentrate on other languages. “When I make a film I am least concerned about the language part. You will find me back here the moment I come across something interesting in Malayalam,” he signs off.
