108The Song of Ceylon (1934)

Lionel Wendt (1900–1944), Dir. Basil Wright (1907–1987), Prod. John Grierson (1898–1972)

DVD film (38 min)

First screened: Ceylon Tea Marketing Board, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 1934

Commissioned by the Ceylon Tea Marketing Board, ‘The Song of Ceylon’ is regarded as one of the most significant films to emerge from the British Documentary film movement, led by John Grierson (1898-1972),  the film’s producer. Grierson reputedly coined the term “documentary” in 1926, arguing for cinema to embrace the ‘original’ actor and scene in place of their fictive counterparts. He believed that the cinema’s ability to narrate the modern world rested in the principles of documentary. ‘The Song of Ceylon’ extols the beauty and peace of Sri Lanka’s landscapes, customs and people. Stills of Buddhist temples are juxtaposed with moving clips of birds in flight, in a manner that is experimental for its time. The narrative of the film includes recitations of Buddhist texts and passages from Robert Knox’s (1641–1720) ‘An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon’ (1681). The narrative voice for most of the film is performed by Lionel Wendt, a photographer and a founding member of the ’43 Group, a group of mid-20th-century artists established in 1943 widely recognised as Sri Lanka’s first modernist collective. The film’s use of Wendt’s voice stands apart from the didactic English narrative voiceover employed by other documentaries of the time. Wendt’s inclusion would likely have satisfied Grierson’s desire for original or more authentic content. Tellingly, however, it is not Wendt’s words that are spoken but those of Robert Knox. The film’s accentuation of Ceylon’s ‘otherness’ can be seen in the predominant visibility it gives to the Ceylonese male body. In contrast to the documentaries of British workers of the time, the representation of the Ceylonese worker is marked out as erotic. The film’s exploitation of the body draws comparisons with the British exploitation of tea labourers that began in 1904.

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