The Song of Ceylon

Basil Wright: The Song of Ceylon (GB 1934). Part 1: The Buddha. The film opens with a superimposed montage of panoramic shots over palm leaves to an extreme low angle shot of a giant Buddha. My screenshot.

Basil Wright: The Song of Ceylon (GB 1934). Part 1: The Buddha. The film opens with a superimposed montage of panoramic shots over palm leaves to an extreme low angle shot of a giant Buddha. My screenshot.

Ceylonin laulu. GB 1935. PC: General Post Office (GPO) Film Unit. P: John Grierson. D+DP+ED: Basil Wright. M: Walter Leigh. Commentary: from Robert Knox's travel journal (1680). Reader: Lionel Wendt. S: Cavalcanti. 40 min. Screened at 1,2:1. A 35 mm BFINA print viewed at Finnish Film Archive, Orion (History of the Cinema), Helsinki, 15 Dec 2010.

Revisited one of the most beautiful (British) films of all time. A poetical masterpiece in four episodes: 1. The Buddha, 2. The Virgin Island, 3. The Voices of Commerce, and 4. The Apparel of God. It is a film of nobility and dignity.

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The first episode follows the passage from devil worship to Buddhism. In the second episode we witness traditional ways with elephants, fishing, sawmills, and dancing schools. It is a celebration of an ancient way of life. In the third episode we proceed to industrialization: forestry (with elephants), cocoanut industry, tea industry, modern communication (telephone wires). In the final episode we return to Buddhism. There is a sense of music, dance, and rhythm in this wonderful film. Largely a beautiful definition of light in this print.

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BFI SCREENONLINE: THE SONG OF CEYLON

Song of Ceylon (1934)

Directed by WRIGHT, Basil

Production Company GPO Film Unit

Sponsors Ceylon Tea Propaganda Bureau

  Empire Tea Marketing Board

A John Grierson Production GRIERSON, John

Asst. Direction TAYLOR, John

With Music by LEIGH, Walter

Voice [Narrator] WENDT, Lionel

Recording PAWLEY, E. A.

Photography (uncredited) WRIGHT, Basil

Editor (uncredited) WRIGHT, Basil

Sound Supervisor (uncredited) CAVALCANTI, Alberto

SYNOPSIS 

The first part of the film depicts the religious life of the Sinhalese, interlinking the Buddhist rituals with the natural beauty of Ceylon. Opening with a series of pans over palm leaves, we then gradually see people journey to Adam's Peak, a centre of Buddhist pilgrimage for over two hundred years. This is continually intercut with images of surrounding natural beauty and a series of pans of a Buddhist statue. Part two focuses on the working life of the Sinhalese, again continually stressing their intimate connection to the surrounding environment. We see people engaging in pottery, woodcarving and the building of houses, whilst children play. The third part of the film introduces the arrival of modern communications systems into the fabric of this 'natural' lifestyle, heralded by experimental sounds and shots of industrial working practices. Finally, in the last part of the film, we return to the religious life of the Sinhalese, where people dress extravagantly in order to perform a ritual dance. The film ends as it began, panning over palm trees.

ANALYSIS

Made by the GPO Film Unit and sponsored by both the Empire Tea Marketing Board and the Ceylon Tea Board, Song of Ceylon is one of the most critically acclaimed products of the documentary film movement. It was hailed at the time of its release by author and film critic Graham Greene as a cinematic masterpiece, and received the award for best film at the International Film Festival in Brussels, 1935.

The film is a sophisticated documentary, notable for its experimentation with sound. It features crucial input from Alberto Cavalcanti, who helped with the soundtrack, as well as composer Walter Leigh, who experimented in the studio to create a number of sound effects.

The film's soundtrack was carefully put together in a studio because technical limitations precluded the ability to record synchronised sound. Leigh constructed a number of 'exotic' sounds, reflecting ceremonial practice and interweaved them with anthropological narration. At times these sounds are disconcerting in the way that they are used: gong sounds, for instance, are treated and manipulated to increase their harshness. The most striking use of experimental sound occurs in the third section of the film, which depicts the effects of telecommunications systems on the native lifestyle. A montage of industrial sounds and electronic waves are mixed together, creating an expressive, yet rather dissonant, sense of the encroachment of modernity.

The third section of the film is the most disconcerting of the four sections and initially contrasts with the other sections. Yet overall the film is structured in a 'circular' manner, emphasising that continuity can occur despite the onset of an initially alien way of life.. The first two sections focus on native rituals and working practices, always stressing the Sinhalese in relation to their natural environment. The modernity of the third sequence initially implies that nature and tradition are endangered by advanced industrialism, but in the last section we return again to the natives partaking in another ceremony, while industrial sounds become merged with the 'traditional' sounds.

Ultimately, then, Song of Ceylon imparts the message that nature and native traditions can coexist harmoniously with modernity. The film proposes a benign, rather than ruthless, message of progress, stressing the benefits of technological innovations. At the end of the film, the camera pans over palm leaves, while a gong sound is also heard, reprising images and sounds featured at the start.

Jamie Sexton

*This film is included in the BFI DVD compilation 'Addressing The Nation: The GPO Film Unit Collection Volume 1'.

BFI SCREENONLINE: THE SONG OF CEYLON