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Pathiraja : the adaptable film maker

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5 years ago

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By Athula Samarakoon

As we remember Pathiraja the filmmaker on his third death anniversary, falling on the 28th of January, 2021, I want to remember him for his versatility. Much has been written about Dr. Pathi as many of his students and the younger cohort of filmmakers and fans knew him, but little on his television contributions.

At a time when the television medium was in its early stages, Dr. Pathi turned to it, to create an idiom that branched off from his usual cinematic style, adapting it to the television medium. He adopts and adapts the narrative medium for the television, something he consciously avoided in his film practice. I look at four teledramas of his which were both artistically rich and at the same time, popular.

Identity as a filmmaker

Pathiraja‘s cinema has been hailed as trailblazing and as illustrating the left bank film idiom in Sri Lanka. He is generally considered to be the filmmaker who drastically changed the content and style of the Sri Lankan cinema, rejecting the content and style of conventional Sinhala cinema.  The creator of the second paradigm shift in Sri Lankan cinema is another fascinating introduction given to him. Pathiraja is a filmmaker who rejected the narrative structure in his filmmaking. Instead he relied highly on non-narrative style.  As Chathura Jayathilaka, one of the leading film critics in Sri Lanka remarked, 

What is crystal clear in Pathiraja’ s cinema is that instead of constructing a well-made narrative with the beginning – middle -and end he creates eventful situations that itself generates the order of the story, story structure, events and characters. (Jayathilaka, 1996:46).

 Pathiraja consciously moved away from this identity of the non-narrative style, when he entered the television medium. Here, he embraced a different identity. Thus Pathiraja ‘s shift from cinema to television is a responsible and sensible move.  Being the master of the art of both Film and Television, he shaped his television works for the medium. Being the scholar of both film and television his knowledge seems to have a profound impact on this move.

 In television he actively engaged in three genres: serial plays, documentary and Docudrama.  Looking at the aesthetics of his television productions, one can see that he was a director who grasped the pulse of the television medium. Pura Sak mana , Gagulen Egodata, Maaya Mandira, WanniHami lage Kathawa, Ella Langa Walauwa, Kadulla,Kampithawil, Suba Anagathyak, Durgaanthaya are some of the productions he made for the television medium.

 Television narrative and fragmentation

Television is a medium that depends on narrative story-telling and exists within that medium. Whether it is fiction or non-fiction all are based on the narrative structure. Narrative structure not only patterns the television story but also shapes our experience of that story. That is why it is called the Nation’s Storyteller

 At the same time, this narrative is also fragmented into smaller units, punctuated by a number of different audio and video elements such as commercials, trailers, station promos, leading to a disturbed or fragmented viewing experience. An undisturbed, seamless engagement with what is on the screen is impossible on television medium.  

This is further complicated by the episodic nature of the form; there are week long gaps for most serieals. Therefore television is a continuously fragmented medium. This fragmentation takes place at the micro-level too.  A 22-minute programme may be divided into two acts whereas an hours programme may break up into four acts.  This type of internal fragmentation will obviously turn television viewing experience into scattered ruminations. Therefore one of the useful ways to address the intrusive nature of television is to articulate the content of the television into narrative structure.

 

 Flow

 Fragmentation is followed by another distinctive characteristic that is flow, meaning the verity of images and sound that streams into television screens continually. Thus, again television viewing became an obtrusive experience.  Jane Feuer describes this;

‘’ continuous, never-ending sequence in which it is impossible to separate out individual texts ‘’. (Feuer, 1983:15) Therefore getting the attention of the audience and keeping them fixed to the text becomes a complicated task for a creator.  In order to overcome this problem is to relate and anchor the text to a narrative as much as possible.

 Concluding each episode with a cliffhanger is one of the methods employed by the writer to address the effect of a disturbance generated by continuous flow. Cliffhanger is something placed at the end of the act or at the end of each episode that is capable of sustaining the interest of the audience.  With a cliffhanger, the writer can end the episode or act in such a way that the audience excitedly waits for the next episode.   In a narrative, it is indispensable to have a cliffhanger to keep the audience intact. 

Pathiraja’s television aesthetics rests on capturing this and utilizing these features with distinction. One sees them in the expositions of Ella Langa Walauwa, Maya Mandira. Through these productions, he was able to offer powerful and exciting television experiences to the audience while maintaining a thrilling, suspenseful, detective and mystical flavour.  His films never had these cliffhanger conclusions, but for television, thanks in part to the efforts of a talented writer like Nimal Senanayake, he was able to craft the form of a cliffhanger style here.

Kadulla and kampitha Vil deal with the events that are deeply historical and of a formative period of the nation state. Though these productions bear a certain affinity to news and documentary, they shape themselves as narratives. The distinctive character of kadulla is the inculcating of dramatic value to the selected content. As a tele-drama Kadulla ran the risk of being rejected by the audience due to its documentary flavour. However, it was an overwhelming success for it was articulated dramatically. He could do it because he knew for sure that selected text is ideal and accordingly he found a way to present it. Consequently, he decisively moved away from his usual predilection for the non-narrative form and strategically embraced narrative structure.

Pathiraja evinced an interest in deploying this new application for a certain extent when directing Wanni Hami Lage Kathawa a tele-drama made before Kadulla. Although, one cannot say it was a successful effort, one could see that he infused the text with dramatic gravity; a dense, rich, television experience. However, it was a kind of effort to infuse a dramatic gravity to the text.   The documentary look that was visible in Kadulla springs from the historic nature of its content. Pathiraja takes the historical detail and turns it into a modern media moment, a recounting of the rise of the nation’s bougeiosie, through plot and character, in a form that makes sense to the mass of late 20th century viewers.

 This understanding can be identified one observes in his visual style also. The Long Takes that formulate reality as documentary, and camera movements and angles that parallel the subject matter, drive his style. Employing close-ups intermittently where necessary illustrates that he exploited the characteristics of the television medium.

 

 Usage of myth

 He used myth in his serials, a departure from his cinematic style. In his early tele- dramas one could see how he made use of myth to convey his intended meanings. He never thought of using myth in his feature films, and instead, focused on the contemporary moment.

 Over the years’ myth has been one of the foundations of narratives. Therefore myths are encountered in narratives again and again because myths can be used to represent life experiences, beliefs, values and behaviours. Consequently, television relies on myths when narratives are created.  Myths can operate in manifold ways in a television narrative giving greater depth to the text. As Vitoria O Donnells says: “Myth counts on television narrative in very intimate and subtle ways” (O’ Donnells, 2007″87). Drawing on myths in developing television narratives has had a salutary effect in creating prodigious characters, incidents, events, and plots. Therefore myth can function as a key for an audience to reach out to the human psyche and it can also create a shocking experience in them. 

 It was Pathiraja’s decision to deal with the mythic element that made Ella Langa Waluawa and Maya Mandira popular and influential. Rather than depending solely on the visual of the suspense and horror genres, he created a sense of horror, suspense and tension, by infusing mythic elements to television narrative. He was able to generate a tightly woven dramatic narrative.

 It was not an easy task to have depth and discussion in television productions, which is driven by commercial needs. Pathiraja faced this challenge by adapting to its form, the narrative style in the main, the well-made story. He used dramatic and mythic elements within the form, where there is suspense, tension, and depth of character. In the hands of another director, it would have been a blue print for failure, but the genius of Pathiraja was able to pull it off.

Pathiraja has been hailed as a revolutionary filmmaker; I also see him as a director who adapted and was adaptable. His tele drama serials bear testimony to this. This is not just an academic exercise for me. In writing this, I have shown how important Pathiraja has been as a film maker, not just in his versatility as a filmmaker, but as an adventurer and an (visual) activist.

 

References

Jayathilaka, Chathura. (1997), Wam Iwuraka Kathila, Vihaga Publishers, Kadaana.

O’ Donnells, V. (2007), Television Criticism, Sage, London.

Miller, Willem. (1991), Screenwriting for Narrative Film and Television, London: Virgin Publishing.

Feuer, J. (1983), ‘The Concept of Live Television’: Ontology as ideology’ in E.A. Kaplan (Ed), Regarding Television, Los Angeles: American Film Institute.

Jayarathna,Thilak.(2008) Kadulla, Fast Publishers, Colombo.

 

 


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Features

Ranking public services with AI — A roadmap to reviving institutions like SriLankan Airlines

Published

23 hours ago

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2026/03/13

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Efficacy measures an organisation’s capacity to achieve its mission and intended outcomes under planned or optimal conditions. It differs from efficiency, which focuses on achieving objectives with minimal resources, and effectiveness, which evaluates results in real-world conditions. Today, modern AI tools, using publicly available data, enable objective assessment of the efficacy of Sri Lanka’s government institutions.

Among key public bodies, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka emerges as the most efficacious, outperforming the Department of Inland Revenue, Sri Lanka Customs, the Election Commission, and Parliament. In the financial and regulatory sector, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) ranks highest, ahead of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Public Utilities Commission, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, the Insurance Regulatory Commission, and the Sri Lanka Standards Institution.

Among state-owned enterprises, the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) leads in efficacy, followed by Bank of Ceylon and People’s Bank. Other institutions assessed included the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation, the National Water Supply and Drainage Board, the Ceylon Electricity Board, the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, and the Sri Lanka Transport Board. At the lower end of the spectrum were Lanka Sathosa and Sri Lankan Airlines, highlighting a critical challenge for the national economy.

Sri Lankan Airlines, consistently ranked at the bottom, has long been a financial drain. Despite successive governments’ reform attempts, sustainable solutions remain elusive.

Globally, the most profitable airlines operate as highly integrated, technology-enabled ecosystems rather than as fragmented departments. Operations, finance, fleet management, route planning, engineering, marketing, and customer service are closely coordinated, sharing real-time data to maximise efficiency, safety, and profitability.

The challenge for Sri Lankan Airlines is structural. Its operations are fragmented, overly hierarchical, and poorly aligned. Simply replacing the CEO or senior leadership will not address these deep-seated weaknesses. What the airline needs is a cohesive, integrated organisational ecosystem that leverages technology for cross-functional planning and real-time decision-making.

The government must urgently consider restructuring Sri Lankan Airlines to encourage:

=Joint planning across operational divisions

=Data-driven, evidence-based decision-making

=Continuous cross-functional consultation

=Collaborative strategic decisions on route rationalisation, fleet renewal, partnerships, and cost management, rather than exclusive top-down mandates

Sustainable reform requires systemic change. Without modernised organisational structures, stronger accountability, and aligned incentives across divisions, financial recovery will remain out of reach. An integrated, performance-oriented model offers the most realistic path to operational efficiency and long-term viability.

Reforming loss-making institutions like Sri Lankan Airlines is not merely a matter of leadership change — it is a structural overhaul essential to ensuring these entities contribute productively to the national economy rather than remain perpetual burdens.

By Chula Goonasekera – Citizen Analyst

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Features

Why Pi Day?

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23 hours ago

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2026/03/13

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International Day of Mathematics falls tomorrow

The approximate value of Pi (π) is 3.14 in mathematics. Therefore, the day 14 March is celebrated as the Pi Day. In 2019, UNESCO proclaimed 14 March as the International Day of Mathematics.

Ancient Babylonians and Egyptians figured out that the circumference of a circle is slightly more than three times its diameter. But they could not come up with an exact value for this ratio although they knew that it is a constant. This constant was later named as π which is a letter in the Greek alphabet.

Archimedes

It was the Greek mathematician Archimedes (250 BC) who was able to find an upper bound and a lower bound for this constant. He drew a circle of diameter one unit and drew hexagons inside and outside the circle such that the sides of each hexagon touch the sides of the circle. In mathematics the circle passing through all vertices of a polygon is called a ‘circumcircle’ and the largest circle that fits inside a polygon tangent to all its sides is called an ‘incircle’. The total length of the smaller hexagon then becomes the lower bound of π and the length of the hexagon outside the circle is the upper bound. He realised that by increasing the number of sides of the polygon can make the bounds get closer to the value of Pi and increased the number of sides to 12,24,48 and 60. He argued that by increasing the number of sides will ultimately result in obtaining the original circle, thereby laying the foundation for the theory of limits. He ended up with the lower bound as 22/7 and the upper bound 223/71. He could not continue his research as his hometown Syracuse was invaded by Romans and was killed by one of the soldiers. His last words were ‘do not disturb my circles’, perhaps a reference to his continuing efforts to find the value of π to a greater accuracy.

Archimedes can be considered as the father of geometry. His contributions revolutionised geometry and his methods anticipated integral calculus. He invented the pulley and the hydraulic screw for drawing water from a well. He also discovered the law of hydrostatics. He formulated the law of levers which states that a smaller weight placed farther from a pivot can balance a much heavier weight closer to it. He famously said “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I will move the earth”.

Mathematicians have found many expressions for π as a sum of infinite series that converge to its value. One such famous series is the Leibniz Series found in 1674 by the German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, which is given below.

π = 4 ( 1 – 1/3 + 1/5 – 1/7 + 1/9 – ………….)

The Indian mathematical genius Ramanujan came up with a magnificent formula in 1910. The short form of the formula is as follows.

π = 9801/(1103 √8)

For practical applications an approximation is sufficient. Even NASA uses only the approximation 3.141592653589793 for its interplanetary navigation calculations.

It is not just an interesting and curious number. It is used for calculations in navigation, encryption, space exploration, video game development and even in medicine. As π is fundamental to spherical geometry, it is at the heart of positioning systems in GPS navigations. It also contributes significantly to cybersecurity. As it is an irrational number it is an excellent foundation for generating randomness required in encryption and securing communications. In the medical field, it helps to calculate blood flow rates and pressure differentials. In diagnostic tools such as CT scans and MRI, pi is an important component in mathematical algorithms and signal processing techniques.

This elegant, never-ending number demonstrates how mathematics transforms into practical applications that shape our world. The possibilities of what it can do are infinite as the number itself. It has become a symbol of beauty and complexity in mathematics. “It matters little who first arrives at an idea, rather what is significant is how far that idea can go.” said Sophie Germain.

Mathematics fans are intrigued by this irrational number and attempt to calculate it as far as they can. In March 2022, Emma Haruka Iwao of Japan calculated it to 100 trillion decimal places in Google Cloud. It had taken 157 days. The Guinness World Record for reciting the number from memory is held by Rajveer Meena of India for 70000 decimal places over 10 hours.

Happy Pi Day!

The author is a senior examiner of the International Baccalaureate in the UK and an educational consultant at the Overseas School of Colombo.

by R N A de Silva

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Features

Sheer rise of Realpolitik making the world see the brink

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2 days ago

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2026/03/12

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A combined US-Israel attack on Iran.(BBC)

The recent humanly costly torpedoing of an Iranian naval vessel in Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone by a US submarine has raised a number of issues of great importance to international political discourse and law that call for elucidation. It is best that enlightened commentary is brought to bear in such discussions because at present misleading and uninformed speculation on questions arising from the incident are being aired by particularly jingoistic politicians of Sri Lanka’s South which could prove deleterious.

As matters stand, there seems to be no credible evidence that the Indian state was aware of the impending torpedoing of the Iranian vessel but these acerbic-tongued politicians of Sri Lanka’s South would have the local public believe that the tragedy was triggered with India’s connivance. Likewise, India is accused of ‘embroiling’ Sri Lanka in the incident on account of seemingly having prior knowledge of it and not warning Sri Lanka about the impending disaster.

It is plain that a process is once again afoot to raise anti-India hysteria in Sri Lanka. An obligation is cast on the Sri Lankan government to ensure that incendiary speculation of the above kind is defeated and India-Sri Lanka relations are prevented from being in any way harmed. Proactive measures are needed by the Sri Lankan government and well meaning quarters to ensure that public discourse in such matters have a factual and rational basis. ‘Knowledge gaps’ could prove hazardous.

Meanwhile, there could be no doubt that Sri Lanka’s sovereignty was violated by the US because the sinking of the Iranian vessel took place in Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone. While there is no international decrying of the incident, and this is to be regretted, Sri Lanka’s helplessness and small player status would enable the US to ‘get away with it’.

Could anything be done by the international community to hold the US to account over the act of lawlessness in question? None is the answer at present. This is because in the current ‘Global Disorder’ major powers could commit the gravest international irregularities with impunity. As the threadbare cliché declares, ‘Might is Right’….. or so it seems.

Unfortunately, the UN could only merely verbally denounce any violations of International Law by the world’s foremost powers. It cannot use countervailing force against violators of the law, for example, on account of the divided nature of the UN Security Council, whose permanent members have shown incapability of seeing eye-to-eye on grave matters relating to International Law and order over the decades.

The foregoing considerations could force the conclusion on uncritical sections that Political Realism or Realpolitik has won out in the end. A basic premise of the school of thought known as Political Realism is that power or force wielded by states and international actors determine the shape, direction and substance of international relations. This school stands in marked contrast to political idealists who essentially proclaim that moral norms and values determine the nature of local and international politics.

While, British political scientist Thomas Hobbes, for instance, was a proponent of Political Realism, political idealism has its roots in the teachings of Socrates, Plato and latterly Friedrich Hegel of Germany, to name just few such notables.

On the face of it, therefore, there is no getting way from the conclusion that coercive force is the deciding factor in international politics. If this were not so, US President Donald Trump in collaboration with Israeli Rightist Premier Benjamin Natanyahu could not have wielded the ‘big stick’, so to speak, on Iran, killed its Supreme Head of State, terrorized the Iranian public and gone ‘scot-free’. That is, currently, the US’ impunity seems to be limitless.

Moreover, the evidence is that the Western bloc is reuniting in the face of Iran’s threats to stymie the flow of oil from West Asia to the rest of the world. The recent G7 summit witnessed a coming together of the foremost powers of the global North to ensure that the West does not suffer grave negative consequences from any future blocking of western oil supplies.

Meanwhile, Israel is having a ‘free run’ of the Middle East, so to speak, picking out perceived adversarial powers, such as Lebanon, and militarily neutralizing them; once again with impunity. On the other hand, Iran has been bringing under assault, with no questions asked, Gulf states that are seen as allying with the US and Israel. West Asia is facing a compounded crisis and International Law seems to be helplessly silent.

Wittingly or unwittingly, matters at the heart of International Law and peace are being obfuscated by some pro-Trump administration commentators meanwhile. For example, retired US Navy Captain Brent Sadler has cited Article 51 of the UN Charter, which provides for the right to self or collective self-defence of UN member states in the face of armed attacks, as justifying the US sinking of the Iranian vessel (See page 2 of The Island of March 10, 2026). But the Article makes it clear that such measures could be resorted to by UN members only ‘ if an armed attack occurs’ against them and under no other circumstances. But no such thing happened in the incident in question and the US acted under a sheer threat perception.

Clearly, the US has violated the Article through its action and has once again demonstrated its tendency to arbitrarily use military might. The general drift of Sadler’s thinking is that in the face of pressing national priorities, obligations of a state under International Law could be side-stepped. This is a sure recipe for international anarchy because in such a policy environment states could pursue their national interests, irrespective of their merits, disregarding in the process their obligations towards the international community.

Moreover, Article 51 repeatedly reiterates the authority of the UN Security Council and the obligation of those states that act in self-defence to report to the Council and be guided by it. Sadler, therefore, could be said to have cited the Article very selectively, whereas, right along member states’ commitments to the UNSC are stressed.

However, it is beyond doubt that international anarchy has strengthened its grip over the world. While the US set destabilizing precedents after the crumbling of the Cold War that paved the way for the current anarchic situation, Russia further aggravated these degenerative trends through its invasion of Ukraine. Stepping back from anarchy has thus emerged as the prime challenge for the world community.

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