Adaptation to local context a better proposition than remake

The problem with ‘Sarigama’ is that it attempts to be the Sound of Music. If its filmmaker Somaratne Balasuriya had tried a local adaptation, it would have worked better. 

Sarigama is absolutely faithful to the 1965 original. It is a remake minus the second half of the story. It would be very difficult to transpose the Von Trapp family’s escape from the Nazis to a local context, and the director has wisely opted to omit that part. 

The story revolves around an exuberant young woman with a hopeless goal of becoming a nun, a stern, widowed Naval commander with a heart of gold under a rough exterior and his seven impossible children (interestingly, Austria has no navy, though from 1958 to 2006 the Austrian army operated patrol boats on River Danube). 

This story has been transposed to Sri Lanka, include the period settings. Much of the dialogue and indeed many of the scenes are similar. This means comparisons are inevitable. Sound of Music became such a landmark film that no Western filmmaker attempted a remake (except for a T.V. series a decade ago) because that would be a daunting task. Apart from the electrifying performance of Julie Andrews as Maria (with Christopher Plummer as the unsmiling naval captain playing perfect counterpoint), it would be hard to better the Rodgers-Hammerstein musical score and songs such as ‘Do Re Mi’ and ‘Edelweiss.’ 

But an adaptation to a Sri Lankan context with liberal changes from the original would be a much better proposition than a remake of this classic. That’s where ‘Sarigama’ fails to take off despite some beautiful backdrops. Much of the cast is able. Ashan Dias as the dour naval captain is excellent, Malani Fonseka as the mother superior is ever dependable and Pooja Umashankar as Maria offers a fine performance while the children, ranging in age from tots to age sixteen (made older for some reason in this version) are convincing. But there is always the inevitable problem of comparisons with the original. 

This would not matter to audiences who have not seen it. As said earlier, most of the scenes faithfully follow the original, and the director is able to carry it off. But one key scene fails to come alive, and that is the famous ‘You are sixteen, going on seventeen’ sequence where 17-year-old Liesl and her boyfriend Rolfe perform a ‘dance of love’ in the garden summerhouse during a rainstorm. It absolutely fails to generate the kind of visual magic and cinematic electricity generated by the original. 

However, if one assumes that many of those came to see Sarigama haven’t seen the Sound of Music, though the DVD became available everywhere after Sarigama opened, the film could work for them. But a subsequent viewing of the original will show where Sarigama truly fails to deliver, which is in the sound of its music. Rohana Weerasinghe is a capable musician but neither his score nor the songs come anywhere close to the splendour of the original, whether it’s the unbridled exuberance of ‘Do Re Mi’ or the more restrained joy of ‘My Favourite Things’ to the elegiac elegance of ‘Edelweiss.’ Without that rousing score, the Sound of Music just wouldn’t be the same. 

Just an afterthought: since this follows so faithfully so much of the original, what’s wrong in ‘remaking’ the original music? (Unless there is a copyright problem involved. But would whoever owns the music now bother with a lawsuit if songs are sung in Sinhala to the original sound track?) ‘Sa Ri Ga’ would sound just as sweet to the ear as ‘Do Re Mi’ but only if the music is right.