Tennis star; satire to highlight climate change; local comedy

Sorry folks, Cassandra will keep mum about local glories and glorious living in our country. If she cries her usual lamentation of “I see blood /mayhem/riots or whatever …” it won’t do you good; Cass neither. Consequently, she again casts her eye over the oceans to pass on snippets of news. Her cowardly restraint is due to a piece in The Island of Wednesday, January 12 the headline of which read: “Warning over public comments: Explanation sought from police.” It leads with the sentence: “The Human Rights Commission has asked police headquarters not to interfere with people’s freedom of expression.” Hosannas and kudos to the boss of the HRC, an intrepid woman! Praise be, but…

Cass’ situ is still gas-less, courageless, hopeless and helpless. A kind store owner from an outstation offered her a cylinder of gas. No thanks, Cass said. She waits till her usual gas vendor delivers a cylinder ‘pramithi anuwa’. Does Cass blame Litro gas or its boss who said that the proportion of the two gases that make up cooking gas has not been tampered with, even as cylinders exploded all over the island? Does Cass blame the government? Not at all. Then whom does she blame? Herself for changing to gas usage to save electricity for the good of the country. She blames the cylinders, which though seemingly innocuous, get the devil into them and decide to bedevil their connecting tubes and regulator, so gas leaks and the cylinders turn to lethal bombs. People are injured. But never mind; the cheated, injured and dead were all simple folk, expendable and never mind their loss. As was said, no gas cylinder explosions occurred in Colombo.

Djokovic vs Australian Immigration Minister

The Australian Open Tennis tournament scheduled to start on January 17 was keenly awaited as a fillip to the spirits and a much needed distraction from current travails. And who was Cass cheering for? Novak Djokovic, undoubtedly. He is spectacular, having won the Australian Open nine times: 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020 and 2021. So what were we waiting for? To see him win the tenth time, a record if ever there was one. He won the British tournament in Wimbledon six times starting in 2011 and ending in 2021; French Open in 2016 and 2021, and the US Open in 2011, 2015 and 2018.

It was reported that when applying for his visa to Melbourne, he was permitted an exemption from vaccination against COVID-19. He had caught the infection a month ago but mercifully mildly. On arrival in Melbourne he was detained and quarantined. His lawyers, cheered on by Australian fans and approbation worldwide, argued for his freedom with the judge, pronouncing his detention in quarantine be ended forthwith. Then up rises the Minister of Immigration who is determined to cancel his visa. It is yet to be seen whether Novak Djokovic will enthral his fans again in Melbourne.

Satire on impact of global warming

I watched Netflix’s second highest grossing film Don’t Look Up and without setting my mind on it, accepted it at face value. Astronomy research assistant, Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), discovers a huge object with its trajectile pointed earthwards. She alerts her boss Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) who co-opts a NASA veteran and they solicit an interview with the President of the United States. This time around the Prez is a woman, Janie Orlean, with long golden hair and a couple of fools around her, played brilliantly by Meryl Streep. After a wait they do get an interview. The Prez almost laughs at the earnest young female researcher and brushes the entire matter off with a ‘let’s wait and see’. Finally they decide to go public on a morning show, The Daily Rip, with Cate Blanchet as co-anchor. Here again derision, so Kate goes ballistic but to no avail.

The film ends with the massive comet, with parts disintegrating and missiles trying to destroy or deflect it, impacting Earth to totally destroy it. Kate and Mindy, with families, get pulverised mid meal. The Prez and an entourage of 2000 escape in a sleeper spaceship and land on a habitable planet. Orlean is attacked, killed and devoured by a monstrous creature.

On Wednesday, January 12, I listened to a BBC interview with director-producer and writer Adam McKay, who said that the intention of making the film was to get a message across. It had a short run in cinemas after its release on December 10, 2021. Then streamed on Netflix.

Don’t Look Up is a satirical sci-fi film intended to awaken people to the imminent and immense danger of global warming. It also satirises government and media indifference to the climate crisis. It received mixed reviews, though the acting was commended by all critics. However, the severity and immediacy of its warning message about global warming was doubtful in its impact. The film received four nominations for the 79th Golden Globe awards, but won none. Netflix reported that the film set a new record for the most viewing hours in a single week, making it the third most watched Netflix film so far.

To Cass, Al Gore’s 2006 film on global warming, The Inconvenient Truth, made a greater impact as there was no intention to entertain, at all. Cassandra bets our Sinhala cinema folk could come up with a superb satire or tragicomedy on the country situation. But censorship? Yes.

A sort of comedy is playing out in Britain at the moment; a frenzy of enquiry, was he there or wasn’t he? The ‘he’ here is PM Boris Johnson and the ‘there’ is a party at the garden of 10 Downing Street in May 2020, with the first lockdown in force. Some say BJ and wife were at the party, he and others say no. To Cass it looks like a genuine storm in a teacup. The announcement or invitation email that circulated among staff at the PM’s residence or office indicated that it would be under strict pandemic restrictions and said to ‘bring your own alcohol’.

Local tragicomedy

We watched a sort of comedy on a day that reminds us of tragedy. Cass means here the recent commemoration of SWRD Bandaranaike’s birth anniversary. There was Maithripala Sirisena leading the Blue Hands with floral tributes, accompanied by sacked State Minister Susil Premajayantha in the forefront. Cass swears her eyes were playing no tricks when she espied him again following the two daughters and their retinue to place flowers at the feet of the statue of their father at Galle Face. Premajayantha is running the double race again with new Hands and the inheritors of the Hand. This blue politician was the first SLFPer to sign in as a member of the newly formed SLPP. Here was a tragicomedy, satire with no satirical impact, showing the flat out reluctance to go back to being a nonentity. ‘Cling to any branch’ is the name of the game.