Berunda Pakshiya on IMDb
Release date, direction and the two leads.
කතාවThe story
The British are cutting a railway line from Colombo up into Kandy. In the villages along the survey, the plan is not merely difficult; it is unthinkable. Hills are not there to be opened.
At the centre of the film stands Pitangane, a Sinhala man of enormous local authority, whose world runs on inherited belief, ritual and the word of elders. Against him runs the line itself, and the engineer who has come to build it — a man with instruments, a gradient and a completion date.
When the engineer falls in love with a village girl, the argument stops being about a railway. It moves indoors, into a household, and the two orders that had been circling each other are forced to share a roof.
The film is Dharmasiri's own adaptation of his novel Bherunda Pakshiya. It was his second feature. Premasiri Khemadasa wrote the score; Dinesh Kumara shot it. The title is also romanised as Berunda Pakshiya, which is how it appears in most catalogue listings.
භේරුණ්ඩ පක්ෂියා යනු සරත් ධර්මසිරි විසින් අධ්යක්ෂණය කරන ලද 2006 වර්ෂයේ සිංහල චිත්රපටයකි. එය ඔහුගේම නවකතාව ඇසුරෙන් නිර්මාණය විය. ප්රධාන චරිත සඳහා ශ්රියන්ත මෙන්ඩිස් සහ ඉන්දික උපමාලි රංගනයෙන් දායක වූ අතර, සංගීතය ප්රේමසිරි කේමදාස විසින් සම්පාදනය කරන ලදී.
What the village knows
Charms and chants, the authority of a headman, the reading of auspicious times, a house held together by what the elders have always said. Knowledge arrives by inheritance and is not up for revision.
What the survey knows
Theodolite and chain, gradients, cuttings and a date by which the line must reach Kandy. Knowledge arrives by measurement, and a mountain is only a problem that has not yet been costed.