The Song of Ceylon
British Film Institute
•
39m
Directed by Basil Charles Wright • Documentary • With Lionel Wendt, Alberto Cavalcanti, John Grierson, Stuart Legg, Basil Charles Wright • 1934 • 38 minutes
The Song of Ceylon was originally commissioned as a series of short travelogues, but spawned an ambitious film transforming travelogue (exotic animals, eye-catching scenery, quirky customs) into a dreamlike film poem. Critics have since argued every possible position on the film's portrayal of colonialism and its subjects. Only during editing did the film find its intricate design, a documentary 'song' in four movements. The first, 'The Buddha', is an impression of religious and cultural practices. 'The Virgin Island' is the most factually informative, featuring fishing and agricultural scenes. 'The Voice of Commerce' highlights the film's most controversial aspect, its ambivalence towards British imperialism. The final section, 'The Apparel of a God', returns to ritualistic images, as if synthesising the verse and chorus of Ceylon's 'song'.
Up Next in British Film Institute
-
Turksib
Directed by Viktor Turin • Documentary • 1929 • 78 minutes
With bold and exhilarating flair, Turksib charts the monumental efforts to build a railway linking the regions of Turkestan and Siberia in 1920s USSR. With its signature use of Soviet montage and a similarly typical portrayal of huge col...
-
Typically British: A Personal History...
Directed by Stephen Frears & Michael Dibb • Documentary • With Gavin Lambert, Michael Apted, Alan Parker, Stephen Frears, Alexander Mackendrick • 1994 • 74 minutes
Shown on the set of `Mary Reilly', Frears hosts a guided tour through seventy-five years of British cinema from Hitchcock's `B...
-
We Are the Lambeth Boys (Karel Reisz)
Directed by Karel Reisz • Documentary • With John Rollason, Thomas Ahearne, Patrick Ahearne • 1959 • 53 minutes
Karel Reisz’s honest and sympathetic depiction of South London teens aimed to challenge the media perception of ‘Teddy Boys’, and would be one of the last films to appear under the Fre...
