Like making love to God”
The politics of intimacy in Vimukthi Jayasundara's The Forsaken Land
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12713612 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nalin Jayasena (Miami University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 137-149 |
| Publication date | 2012-05-09 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | South Asian Popular Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1474-6689 • E-ISSN: 1474-6697 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14746689.2012.682864 |
| OpenAlex | W2084570459 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 5 |
Both in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in Sri Lanka, filmmakers have increasingly come under the threat of violence for putatively-partisan depictions of the recently concluded armed conflict in Sri Lanka. In this paper, I suggest that Sri Lankan cinema has become a discursive battleground between nationalist elements both in India and in Sri Lanka. I will discuss how Vimukthi Jayasundara's The Forsaken Land (2005) makes a crucial intervention in the competing nationalist discourses, between the Sinhalese and the Tamils, circulating around the Sri Lankan civil war. Rather than interpret the film simply as an attack on Sri Lankan state institutions, as perceived by Sinhala nationalists, I demonstrate how the film provides a critique of authoritarian, military rule on both sides of the conflict – the Government of Sri Lanka and the Tamil militants. Both entities see themselves as preserving a distinct national culture, against attacks from the other side, achieved through the policing of gender and sexuality, the same cultural ideals that come under scrutiny in Jayasundara's controversial film
Art · Authoritarianism · Democracy · Ethnology · Literature · Movie theater · Nationalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Scrutiny · Sociology · South asia · Sri lanka · State (computer science · Tamil · Cinema and Media Studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · South Asian Cinema and Culture · South Asian Studies and Conflicts
| Highly cited | No |
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