Viragaya | Sunday Observer

Viragaya

1 September, 2019

The film adaptation of Dr. Martin Wickremasinghe’s Viragaya (Devoid of Passions) is directed by Dr. Tissa Abeysekara and stars Sanath Gunathilake as Aravinda Jayasena, Sriyani Amarasena as Sarojini, Sabeetha Perera as Bathee and Cletus Mendis as Jinadasa.

The plot revolves around the life of the protagonist Aravinda Jayasena who is a very complex character. He is undecided about his future and chooses to study chemistry while being employed in a clerical job. It focuses on the mundane events in his day-to-day life.

Aravinda has a friendship with his school friend Sarojini who proves to be more decisive than him and suggests that they enter into a relationship but he is undecided and chooses to live by himself after his elder sister Menaka and her husband Dharmadasa are given ownership of the ancestral home. Aravinda employs a woman named Gunawathie with a young daughter Bathee to keep house. He becomes fond of Bathee and spends for her schooling. After Bathee grows up and enters into a relationship with Jinadasa, Aravinda helps them to get married.

Dr. Martin Wickremasinghe has written Viragaya in the form of an interior monologue from the perspective of Aravinda which has similarities to the stream of consciousness narrative technique, and it is considered by critics to be a psychological novel. It is a difficult novel to adapt into film because it is written in the form of an interior monologue but Dr. Tissa Abeysekara’s film is a good adaptation of the novel. Sanath Gunathilaka speaks beautiful Sinhala and gives an outstanding performance. Sriyani Amarasena, Sabeetha Perera and Cletus Mendis also give very good performances.

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