cineist first quarter 2009
 
 
 
 
Film review in Sri Lanka is mostly restricted to a small space in the news papers, where hitherto it has been a practice only to write for the sole purpose of bringing the viewers to the theatres. Therefore the so called film reviews do not go beyond a certain limit and are mostly defined by the theatre owners and distributors for the purpose of money and market. And there is another category where film reviews are written to position a particular film depending on the director, producer etc and other politics that work within the system to say whether a particular film is either good or bad, and invariably people will have to depend on such reviews to ascertain whether a particular film is good or bad. A space for dialogue is not provided.

When one reads the present reviews in the news papers, one is deemed to think that, most or for that matter all the films which come into the theaters are of good standing and that they are beyond criticism. In a way it is a reflection of the society, where there is hardly any room for dissenting thought. It is a taboo to criticize, because the general culture is to not to look at criticism as healthy, but rather it is deemed as a threat to the status quo. Further we being an island nation, the ‘island mentality’ seem to dominate and pacify us. Therefore there is a general paranoia for disagreement and everyone wants to pat each others back and live in a state of complacency.