My Red Comrade is what you would get if Clerks was directed by Tarkovsky. It was funny, it was sad and it was also super-duper deep. This film was a dramedy with ‘Her’ and ‘Him’ constant debates on politics, philosophy and life. It was a nature movie, with ‘Her’s’ constant sensual teasing and ‘Him’s’ stoic repulsion. The forth-wall breaking was also a unique touch seldom seen in local movies and they were total meta-narrative moments
A girl in a sultry red dress is on the run in the middle of a thundershower. She stumbles across the train tracks and evades the Police by sneaking through a shanty town. Three stars go down like GTA; an old grumpy communist (sorry Asiri ayyiya) takes her in and fibs to the cops. No, the script was not written by Snoopy on top of a red doghouse. This is how Sudath Mahadivulawewa’s 90-minute masterpiece begins. But why did I call it a masterpiece? Sri Lankan filmmakers don’t have the dough to blow on something as massive as Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. But we can pound the sand till giant worms pop out.
This April, My Red Comrade introduced a thrift-store variety of storytelling seldom seen in Sri Lankan cinema and I guess this could be the start of an era of new-school flicks such as ‘The Newspaper’ and ‘Saho’.
The acting was raw and unbridled, the music was awesome (good job Nadeeka Guruge) and the ambience was suspenseful even though this wasn’t a thriller, or was it?
My Red Comrade is what you would get if Clerks was directed by Tarkovsky. It was funny, it was sad and it was also super-duper deep. This film was a dramedy with ‘Her’ and ‘Him’ constant debates on politics, philosophy and life.
It was a nature movie, with ‘Her’s’ constant sensual teasing and ‘Him’s’ stoic repulsion. The forth-wall breaking was also a unique touch seldom seen in local movies and they were total meta-narrative moments. With nods to soviet cinema and Russian literature, My Red Comrade dips its toes into communist philosophical theories such as the ‘New Socialist Man’ (or Woman, if Her’s character interjects). I won’t try to unpack them in my review since I want you to go watch this movie.
Although My Red Comrade is a two-character film with stellar performances by Tharindi Fernando and Asiri Allage, I felt that the wooden shack, where most of the plot unfolds, was the main character. It’s nice to see local filmmakers taking aesthetics seriously and not solely relying on the actors to carry the whole picture.
Red Circle Productions also did a good job. Kudos to the young crew making a difference in an industry dominated by those past retirement age who think they still can make movies because they have money. In any case, My Red Comrade has proven itself a proletarian movie, punching the bourgeoisie 24 frames per second and schooling aspiring tight-budget filmmakers how it’s done.
