Pathi would have been thrilled- Donald
After 43 years Donald Karunaratne, Dharmasena Pathiraja’s closest friend and cinematographer of almost all his films, now living in California, at a place 20-minutes away from Hollywood, recalls how Pathi, (the name master filmmaker fondly called in the industry) brought the script of ‘Bambaru Avith’ written in a few sheets of papers and how it was developed into a film in remote ‘Kalpitiya’.
“How Pathi told me about the story, went to select the location, shooting for nearly one month and how post-production was done, everything is like a film itself,” says Donald. “One day Pathi said his plans to shoot the film in Kalpitiya and he wanted to go there. He said we could go in the morning and come in the evening. So I borrowed my wife’s grandfather’s car after dropping him at his office and we went to Kalpitiya to look for locations”, described Donald.
“On the day when we were travelling to Kalpitiya on the main Colombo-Mannar road and as we turned from Palaviya junction to get to the ‘hand like thing’ in Sri Lanka map, the driver accidently knocked against the roof of a shop at the junction,” said Donald with a smile.
Our main and only location was Kalpitiya and we got a tremendous support from the police, Navy and the villagers. We were lodged at the Kalpitiya
Rest House which had only one room and it was given to two ladies Malani Fonseka and Ruby de Mel. The only request Ruby made was to have a bathroom with a commode as she had then undergone a surgery. The rest house didn’t have a bathroom with a commode and it was we who fixed the commode before we start the film,” Donald said trecking along the movie making memory of ‘Bambaru Avith’.
“Some others slept on mats spread along the open veranda of the rest house. But most of us slept under the massive Siyambala (Tamarind) tree in front of the guest house.
“The film colour was not black and white but it was grey and white. I did it with a purpose; to get the dry and remote atmosphere of Kalpitiya. But many critics could not or did not understand this,”Donald award winning cinematographer said.
“I still can remember that every morning Pathi and I used to go to the location and plan days shooting. By the time we return others were ready with their breakfast taken”. “Pathi would have been amazed to see that his film is in the Cannes. I am sad that he is not there to celebrate this. Who thought that he would go before me,” Donald said grieving over the loss of his dear friend who passed away in 2018.
“I could not understand much about Pathi’s politics and what he talked about the working class and the bourgeoisie class,”. “I am so thrilled to know that this film which we started as group youngesters has gone to Cannes and got world recognition. I have no word to explain it,” said Donald in tears.