[Extract of The Song of Ceylon]

He was the one who I think was a great influence on the greatest documentary ever made in Sri Lanka about Sri Lanka, 1936 I think…. the Song of Ceylon. You may know, of course, the voice is Lionel Wendt. So he has great feeling for background and all that because he worked with Basil Wright. A great documentary.

[Music from Song of Ceylon]

The turning point in my life came from my brother. My brother was a painter and he had met Lionel Went. Lionel Went had bought at an exhibition one of his paintings and became very interested in his work. So he had told Lionel Wendt I have a brother who is very keen on writing and also the cinema.

[Extract of Lionel Wendt narrating Song of Ceylon: “These rites they celebrated until the coming of a great God whom they called Buddha and to whom the salvation of souls belong. Him, they believed once to have come upon the earth whence he departed from the top of the highest mountain on the island called in the Chingule language, Amalev, but by the Portuguese and the European niche Adam’s Peak. It is sharp like a sugar loaf and on the top, a flat stone with the print of a foot like a man’s on it, but far bigger, being about two foot long. It is the footprint of the Buddha. The people of this land count it meritorious to go and worship this impression. And generally about their new year, which is in March they, men, women and children go up this fast and high mountain to worship”.]

But unfortunately, he died before I ever made a film. Very unfortunate. He died at forty-four. I always think it was very sad that if at least he couldn’t see my first film. Not only myself, a whole group of painters I mean, artists of all kinds. I mean it was a terrible shock when nobody knew that he would go at forty-four. And he smoked that terrible brand called Peacock which has the strongest tobacco at the time.

[Soundtrack of Song of Ceylon]

Even, I think, inspired the whole generation. Not only me. I mean, not only do you start the ’43   group and it became a very big event. I think it’s one of the most important cultural events in the history of Sri Lanka because the group of painters of the ’43 and most of them became very famous. And I think it completely changed not only the way of… not only painting but a whole lot of other things. Attitudes to literature, to the other art, to radio, all sorts of things because most of those people were involved in more than painting. Painting was…but nobody made any money for the love of the art.

Extract of Lionel Wendt narrating Song of Ceylon: “Nor is it held any disgrace for men of the greatest quality to do any work either at home or in the field if it be for themselves. But to work for hire with them is reckoned for a great shame and very few are here to be found that will work so”

I was introduced to Lionel Wendt and Lionel Wendt made a complete change in my life. If there is one man I could say who changed my life, it was Lionel Wendt. He was a man who, of course, didn’t entertain fools around. It’s difficult to meet him, but in my case, I must say he was very kind. I would meet him once a week. I was very lucky because he had a paper, a fortnightly paper that was running, published during the Boer years called Kasari. Actually, it was funded from the north. Funding came from Jaffna. And there were the couple of directors there who were really interested in the paper.

Lionel Wendt was the sort of moving spirit. One day he told me, he said, you are so interested in the cinema, encouraged me to write because I want to write…writing short stories. He said, bring them along. He was a very, very exacting person. And his criticism was, I mean ruinous if it was bad. The short stories got through, just about.

[Music from Song of Ceylon]

Then he asked me to do a column on films, the current films. And that column became a very popular thing and popular with him. At the end of the year, I would do a tabulation…best picture of the year. Best actor of the year. Best actress of the year. There wasn’t a single Sinhala film at the time made. So, I mean, there was nothing to review. There were Tamil films, but I would be one used to go into the Tamil film because of the language problem. So Lionel Wendt, I would say, at the beginning of my life, was a great inspiration. I…I… It was very, very unfortunate because cinema was one of very important things in his life.