Munnel

Rudran, facing trial as an ex-Tamil Tiger militant, is released on bail. He returns to his village in the North Province with his mother, an ageing soothsayer. While she spends her days in the spiritual realm, attempting to locate the whereabouts of those who have disappeared for a village community deeply bereaved, Rudran begins his own tireless search for his childhood love, Vaani.

With a cast and crew of local Tamil-speakers from the area, all direct witnesses to the civil war, Munnel is a deeply authentic reflection on the post-war consciousness of Sri Lanka’s ethnic minority. Filmmaker Visakesa Chandrasekaram explores this perspective with masterful subtlety and a meticulous, languid pacing. Rudran’s journey is composed of moments of stillness, tenderness and contemplation, encompassing the costs of civil war and the weight of its failures on the Tamil identity in the quiet melancholy of Sivakumar Lingerswaran’s revelatory, layered performance. There are no flashbacks, and yet the past is achingly present in his physicality, his gazes and gestures that debut cinematographer Rishi Selvam frames in wide and tranquil shots, uniting characters and landscape in a wounded harmony.

“What happened over there?” Rudran’s friend asks him. Rudran remains poignantly silent, and the wind blows sorrowfully through the grasses that surround them.

– Fiona Armour

This film is part of the vfonds Freedomline. Click here for an overview of the other films that have been selected for the vfonds Freedomline.