By Jhanvi Vipin (she/her)
Since the culmination of the Glasgow Film Festival, there have been many genres of independent films that have been explored. To bring up one last film to our list of reviews, there was the opportunity to watch a Sri Lankan comedy film. Indian films are commonly remade into Sri Lankan ones, but this film in particular will be remade in the Tamil language, and it was the 2023 Winner of First Feature Competition at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.
Written and directed by Ilango Ramanathan, Tentigo focuses on a small family in Sri Lanka. The main characters are the two brothers (‘Elder’ played by Priyantha Sirikumara and ‘Younger’ played by Thusitha Laknath) who encounter a rather embarrassing problem: their father (Ranjith Panagoda) has passed away but has a visible erection. The brothers are beside themselves with unease as they discreetly try to conceal the problem to avoid becoming town gossip before their father’s funeral. We are slowly revealed to some of the other characters in the film – their mother (Kaushalya Fernando), wives (Aloka Gayathrie and Sulochana Weerasinghe), local doctor, rickshaw driver, coffin maker, and finally the nosy neighbour (Chandani Seneviratne). The film handles multiple characters that are unnamed but remains balanced throughout its plot.
It is a classic story where the characters try everything to make things right until it goes horribly wrong. It is well-paced and has no lack of humour, with many subtle sexual innuendos. Ramanthan’s direction showing the eventual collapse of too many stacked problems was well done. As the story goes along, you can see the cracks forming in the characters’ stoicness. This is perhaps the keynote of the film – the underlying issues rooted in the father’s behaviour despite the more obvious complication. The elder son has unsettled emotional business with his father, the younger brother is notably using alcohol to cope with his grief, and the mother’s marriage to the father was far from perfect.
Regardless, the film was an amusing debut and spurred genuine laughs from the audience, especially the climax, which was pretty amazing if you ask me. The reactions of the characters were realistic – the hushed voices, the smirks, the prying eyes, the voice of reason versus superstition. It shows the complexity and dailies of Sri Lankan society, especially the societal standards and taboos that are completely different to those in the West. Ultimately, it’s a comedy-drama film that highlights that humour and sorrow can co-exist and that hidden secrets can unveil at the worst (or funniest!) of times.
Final year journalism + politics student at Strathclyde. Culture Editor 24/25
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