“Dadaima” – the hunt goes on

As “Dadayama” swept the board in the local cinema awards scene before, “Dadaima” has already proven its mettle. Already it has won a couple of international awards, namely, the debut direction awards at Calcutta International Film Festival, Singapore World Film Carnival, Platinum Remi Award Houston International Film Festival. It is interesting to see how it fares in the local award scene next year.

By Dr. Prasanna Cooray

When Jayalal Anandagoda killed Adeline Vitarana cold blooded on one fateful day, in March 1959, he would have thought that would be the end of it. That wasn’t the case to be as the smart police (of yesteryear) pounced on him in double quick time, and brought him to book that led to the capital punishment to him in one of the country’s most talked about murder cases in the recent history.

Twenty-four years down the line, in 1983, when Vasantha Obeyesekere made an award-wining movie “Dadayama” from that story seed, the public would have thought he had put the final nail in the coffin. That wasn’t the case to be. Forty years since then, Dr. Naomal Perera (the renowned cancer surgeon) unearthed the coffin, investigated the remnants, to bring about another award-wining movie “Dadaima”, extending the same storyline to his imagination.

Dr. Perera

As was “Dadayama”, “Dadaima”, too, is a suspense thriller, but of a different kind. Forty years ago, Vasantha had more bones to stuff the corpses, which he meticulously did cinematically. Thus, Naomal was left with little to intrigue into the past, which made him to look for the next best possible option, that is to stride into the future. This he has done so craftily and surreptitiously to keep the audience in suspense during the entirety of the film. Naomal has done justice to (if I may say) the predecessor (Dadayama) by trying to bridge the continuity through bringing in some sequences from it. For a past viewer of Dadayama this is nostalgia.

Naomal, while retaining Swarna Mallawarachchi from the original movie (in the role of Adeline’s sister though), has replaced the role of Anandagoda, from Ravindra Randeniya with Jackson Anthony. Both Swarna and Jackson have done justice to their selection (as what they are anyway known for). Jackson, in a bit of theatrical overindulgence though, tries his best to bring about the sentiments of a murderer scot free, who has suddenly come to be plagued by the mental trauma of his past crime as a result of the revelation of the crime he committed.

Swarna in Dadayama

Young blood Akila Danuddara and Marion Wettasinghe have done at least what they are expected of. It is also nice to see young Dilmin Perera, continuing a great tradition of artistry into the third generation, in a cameo role though. By limiting the major roles to a few and revolving the story around them, Naomal, a novice to the big-time cinema, has done enough justice to the audience by not picking their brains too much.

“Dadaima”

has all the ingredients to make a blockbuster. As “Dadayama” swept the board in the local cinema awards scene before, “Dadaima” has already proven its mettle. Already it has won a couple of international awards, namely, the debut direction awards at Calcutta International Film Festival, Singapore World Film Carnival, Platinum Remi Award Houston International Film Festival. It is interesting to see how it fares in the local award scene next year.

Ravindra and Swarna in Dadayama

Finally, as much as I am elated by the skills of my great buddy and batchmate Naomal, in his newly chosen craft, I would do injustice to the readership if I don’t pen a few lines about this exceptional personality. Our friendship goes back to almost 40 years, when we climbed together the hillock up the Thalagolla Road, Ragama, as the new entrants of the third batch of the North Colombo Medical College. Naomal, an old Josephian, was kind of a reserved guy, probably his cerebrum had better things in store than many of us. He was exceptionally dexterous, with the keyboard or the guitar, but more importantly with the scalpel. His clean and stupendous dissections were not only a treat to watch, but also a source of study for many of us. He was one of the few among us who could disect the “cricoid” clean and dry. (Only the medical fraternity will know the joke of this, haha). No wonder that Naomal was a born surgeon, and more so a surgeon who has a fastidious set of fingers that takes care of all the nitty-gritty of cancer surgery, which is supposed to be among the most difficult among surgeries.

The same precision, I expect, Neomal will infuse to the world of cinema.