Venice

Between Two Worlds

 (Sri Lanka-France)

By JAY WEISSBERG

A Les Film Hatari, Unlimited, Arte France Cinema (France)/Film Council Prods. Sri Lanka, Anura Silva (Sri Lanka) production, in association with Poly-Son Post Production, Le Fresnoy, 24 Frames. (International sales: Artscope, Paris.) Produced by Michel Klein, Philippe Avril. Co-producers, Michel Reilhac, Chandana Aluthge, Anura Silva. Directed, written by Vimukthi Jayasundara.
 
With: Thusitha Laknath, Kaushalya Fernando, Huang Lu.
(Sinhalese, English dialogue)
 

Landscape and memory flow one from the other in Vimukthi Jayasundara's inscrutable sophomore feature, "Between Two Worlds." More accessible than his almost perversely downbeat debut, "The Forsaken Land," "World's" boasts stunning lensing, a painter's eye for unexpected compositions and an accomplished feel for ambient sound, but Jayasundara's particular vision, reminiscent of the Apichatpong Weerasethakul school, remains opaque. Champions will be vocal, though the film, caught between the worlds of the art gallery and the arthouse, will likely remain stuck in festival no-man's land.

An opening montage of striking images, including a wonderful sequence of a man falling from the sky into water, settles into shots of a city laid waste by rioters. Rajith (Thusitha Laknath) repeatedly kicks a man dressed as a mouse, then assists a young woman (Huang Lu) in getting out of the city. She prefers the pawing of their van driver to Rajith's unsuccessful attempts at molestation, and he's left to wander the countryside. Eventually he meets up with his sister-in-law (Kaushalya Fernando), who bathes his eyes in her breast milk.

The impossibility of defining Rajith's character is actually refreshing, though thanks to a temporal round-robin, there's no emotional investment, since no violent act has any lasting consequence except, perhaps, the curse of being repeated for eternity. Obviously, traditional narration is not among the helmer's interests: A story exchanged by a couple of fishermen, about a prince hiding in a tree trunk from the uncles he's fated to kill, has a seemingly important but ultimately undefinable role, never quite integrating itself with the more interesting concept of the landscape as witness to both wonderful and horrible things.

As a mood poem of sorts on Sri Lanka, it's decidedly more complex than "The Forsaken Land," acknowledging the nurturing forces even more than the destructive ones that have wracked the nation for decades.

Unquestionably, the beauty of "Between Two Worlds" lies in its parts rather than as a whole. Jayasundara favors camera movements that mimic a slow-moving predator keeping a respectful distance, taking in the gorgeous, green-swathed mountains and lush tropical grasses. Many of his images are striking and unexpected, such as a scene in which a choreographed group of men toss buckets of water out of the river in synchronized swoops of their arms. The soundscape reflects the living memory exuded from the soil, while deep cello bows and elongated bass notes add mournful, elegiac layers.

Camera (color, widescreen), Channa Deshapriya; editor, Gisele Rapp-Meichler; music, Lackshman Joseph De Saram; production designer, Lal Harendranath; costume designer, Kanchana Thalpawila; sound (DTS), Dana Farzanehpour, Franck Desmoulins, Roman Dymny; associate producer, Laetitia Fevre; assistant director, Asoka Athaudahetti. Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (competing), Sept. 6, 2009 (Also in Toronto Film Festival -- Visions). Running time: 86 MIN.