In one of the best scenes in Prasanna Vithanage’s Paradise, a Sri Lankan priest shows an Indian tourist couple (played by Roshan Mathew and Darshana Rajendran) the exact spot where Sita had her trial by fire.
After what seems like a rehearsed monologue that he has recounted to umpteen other tourists, the priest very matter-of-factly adds they can pay him in US dollars, Indian rupees or Sri Lankan rupees. As they are leaving the spot, the couple’s local guide, Mr Andrew (Shyam Fernando) sheepishly admits how he might have appeared just as greedy and opportunistic as the priest. “These stories are being appropriated by different groups and being interpreted according to their needs. So, what’s the harm if someone is making money off of it, right?” Amritha (Rajendran) asks Mr Andrew. He says, “I’m also doing the same thing, ma’am.” It is a fantastic, inward-looking exchange between two characters, who are sifting through their own beliefs while searching for the truth.
Mr Andrew is a caretaker of a homestay in Sri Lanka, conducting a Ramayan tour under which tourists visit all significant spots where the Indian epic supposedly took place. In the midst of the 2022 recession, on the very day Sri Lanka has declared bankruptcy, his newest guests are Kesav (Mathew) and Amritha, on their anniversary. The film featuring dialogue in Malayalam, Sinhalese, English and Hindi, is a careful examination of a seemingly functional marriage, the personal as the political, and the mundane moral choices made by the privileged that have devastating consequences on those with fewer means.
Co-incidentally, Vithanage’s film is the second release this week to invoke an Indian epic. While Nag Ashwin’s Kalki 2898 AD goes down the conventional route of using a scene from the Mahabharat to trace a hero’s awakening, Paradise takes a more considered route and meditates on our fixation with epics as a means to selfish ends. Whether it is to earn money from tourists (or the film audience), announce one’s supremacy as a race, or a way to accumulate political power.
Vithanage’s film primarily sees through the eyes of the tourist couple – Kesav and Amritha. He is a filmmaker, on the cusp of a lucrative Netflix deal, while she plays the part of the quiet, supportive partner with fewer materialistic ambitions. Staying in an idyllic homestay on a hill, they are insulated from the poaching/hunting that takes place as a sport only a few miles away, and a country that has taken to the streets to protest an inept, irresponsible regime. The setting here also mirrors Kesav and Amritha’s relationship, which might seem peaceful and loving on the surface, but the inner rumblings come to the fore as the film goes on. They are very much in love, but only a few trying circumstances can expose the gap in their contrasting worldviews.
A still from ‘Paradise’.
When Kesav and Amritha are robbed by a few masked men in the dead of the night at their homestay, it triggers a chain of events that will be impossible to turn away from. Kesav’s iPad contains all his work on the Neftlix show he is supposed to start the minute he gets back from vacation. It is also a terrible time for him to lose his phone because he is supposed to be in touch with his team and executives, as they prepare to shoot the project. Amritha is relatively less perturbed, and visibly annoyed by Kesav being an entitled tourist, who storms into a police station and demands the cops find the perpetrators, or he will call the Indian high commission.
Vithanage’s film is a triumph for how sparsely plotted it appears at first glance, but the more one delves into each dialogue and reaction shot, the more it begins to make sense. For example, Kesav’s, outline is of someone who only thinks for himself. The way he throws a tantrum when he is told that the chef has not sourced venison (deer meat) for their stay, or how he casually tells Amritha to stop wasting her time on her blog and finish the book that she had begun writing. It is no coincidence that he is remaking Squid Games – a critique of a society where a few prioritise their pleasure over the needs of the many. Kesav is a fine break from the characters of a tortured, idealistic artist. He is the kind of journeyman filmmaker who will (most probably) go on to get rich by bowing to the industry’s ‘demands’, and won’t make anything remarkable before fading away.
Mathew is excellent as Kesav, moderating his cruelty and hiding behind the brittle exterior of a reasonable man. He never becomes an easy-to-hate villain, despite all the space he takes up in every scene he inhabits. Rajendran, on the other hand, is superbly restrained as the partner relegated to being the support system. Vithanage peppers the film with micro moments that lay bare the Kesav-Amritha dynamic, like when she grabs the towel for him, as he washes his face, moments after venting his frustration about the cops’ ineffectiveness, knowing fully well that he will throw a tantrum when he does not find a towel next to the wash basin. Rajendran is the conscience of the film, questioning the ‘ease’ with which the cops found the perpetrators when pressured, or how her husband identifies the suspects – knowing that he is not sure.
Sometimes Amritha’s character also becomes the mouthpiece for Vithanage’s film, stating things all too explicitly, to ensure the film’s message is not lost on the audience. It takes away from the film’s overall quality to trust its audience to read between the lines.
By the end, Paradise evolves into a stunning introspection of the human condition – begging its audience to probe within themselves. What would I have done in such a situation? What is the ‘correct’ way to act when faced with a difficult choice? Rest assured, your true self will reveal itself under the slightest bits of duress. After all, most of these folk tales are stories we tell ourselves only to rationalise our actions.
