'Forsaken Land' offers a sighting of a potentially major new talent 'The Forsaken Land'.

Michael Wilmington, Tribune movie critic Published September 1, 2006 An extraordinary debut film from Sri Lankan writer-director Vimukthi Jayasundara, "The Forsaken Land," is a stark, lyrical and affecting portrait of war's aftermath as seen from the edges of the old conflict.

In images that sear themselves into your memory, Jayasundara shows a watchful young girl (Pumidika Sapurni Peiris), a young soldier (Mahendra Perera), his faithless wife (Nilupili Jayawardena) and devout unmarried sister (Kaushalya Fernando) caught up in the events that follow a cease-fire between rebels and the government.

Throughout, in barren landscapes that are deliberately meant to evoke the absurdist nightmares of Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett, the uneasy peace seems as threatening as the preceding bloodshed.

Jayasundara's picture, which took the 2005 Cannes Film Festival Camera d'Or for best first film (an award previously won by Dennis Hopper and Spike Lee), is done with sparse dialogue and haunting tableaux of the isolated rural landscape.

"Land" has some of the strange poetry of Ingmar Bergman's great 1968 anti-war film "Shame," but it's a more cryptic, exotic work, burningly immediate yet imbued with some of the quality of timeless fable. Only 27, Jayasundara seems a moviemaker of high promise.

"Forsaken Land," a work of sophistication and cinematic eloquence, may signal the arrival of a major international talent.

"Some films offer up their mysteries openly; others, like the quietly affecting Sri Lankan film "The Forsaken Land," keep their secrets close, revealing them gradually shot by shot, scene by scene." - New York Times

"Beautiful but withholding... [Jayasundara's] command of film language is evident and his evocation of postwar trauma is haunting." - Village Voice

"An extraordinary debut film... Forsaken Land, a work of sophistication and cinematic eloquence, may signal the arrival of a major international talent." - Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune

"Jayasundara has an undeniable gift for painting haunting images." -Time Out Chicago

Avant- garde Storytelling Stunning Sri Lankan debut evokes Tarkovsky BY STEVE ERICKSON Jayasundara is even more inclined towards abstraction and revelling in nature's beauty than Tarkovsky, but his tracking shots are similar. Almost every scene in "The Forsaken Land" is comprised of just one shot. Each one plays like a mini-feature, often ending in a surprising place.