THE FORSAKEN LAND

A single tank rolls into a suspiciously quiet war zone: a tiny hamlet where only one family still lives. A fragile ceasefire seems to hold, but the fighting could break out again at any moment. In this emptiness the days pass – a guard soldier, his unfaithful wife, his unmarried sister, a small girl the sister protects, and an old man who tells the child a story about the endless suffering of humankind. There is no plot in the ordinary sense, only tension and stasis. “The Forsaken Land” is the feature debut of the Sri Lankan Vimukthi Jayasundara, from 2005.

Jayasundara works with very little dialogue, long takes and a slow rhythm; the film has a surprising stillness. It screened in 2005 in Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section and won the Caméra d’Or for best debut – the first film from Sri Lanka to do so. “The Forsaken Land” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2006.

Shown at the 2006 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2006 · Film Archive