Sri Lanka National Handball Team

This is one of the greatest movies I have ever watched. It is real and it is brave. I really liked the way it pictured the sorrowful helpless lives of Sri Lankan poverty and how they struggle to stand up on their own. No exaggeration at all and amazingly realistic. I think Sri Lankan film industry needs some movies like this, which are closer to the reality. Even though the director is Italian (and I honor him for making such a good movie out of our talented artists), our Sri Lankan artists have done a great justice to the movie. First of all I must say that the cast is saturated. You can expect more for a real wholesome cast for a picture. Even Irangani Serasinghe does a few seconds role; she creates a wonderful image of an Aunt Maggie (Iim not going to spoil it for you here) Everyone is contributing with a great performance, so the cast can be easily given a 10/10. Especially Darmapriya Dias has done an outstanding job. He has really proved that he is a very talented young artist, emerged through the stage plays.

I will rate this movie as 9/10(that's to be fair I guess) Really hope to see more movies like this in the future.

Mi chum is Machan.

While Ulberto was shooting the movie in Sri Lanka, the most frequently spoken word that got his attention was "Machan". A common word used among Sri Lankan males when they talk to each other. As a result the director at the end decided to name the movie after it.

As the title suggests it is a bond between friends, not limiting to the youth, all types of age groups come together to achieve a common goal. That goal is somehow reaching a developed country for a better life.

Few years ago,Uberto Passolini read a news article featuring a story about a Sri Lankan handball team who traveled to Australia for an international tournament. There was a surprise in that story and based on the actual events he decided to make a movie on those events.

The story of the handball team appeared to be a very calculated and smart effort to illegally migrate into a foreign land. Inspired by that Uberto visited Sri Lanka with the intention of finding a writer and a producer to bring that story into life on silver screen.

It was a successful effort and the end result turned out to be a very good original movie.

The story can be quite universal to the youths looking for a better life in most under developed countries. Even though the movie passes itself to be reckoned as a comedy, it is no short of drama. The difference is those actual events have not been dramatized and it has given the movie such a realistic feeling that the audience can sit through relating themselves to the situations portrayed in the movie. I believe the genius of the director in balancing the story and drama is the best quality attributed to the success of this movie. The other main aspect is the casting. The choices are superb. The actors can not be more authentic. The convincing nature of the acting talents has been the highlight throughout the movie. The audience will embrace them, cause they are the closest thing to your own family and friends you rarely get to watch on Sri Lankan made movies. Not to mention the movie is filled with social clichés as well. I believe even though it is a hard core indie movie, those clichés deviate the movies' path from conventional indie style to Hollywood low budget nature. Apart from that the overall performance of the movie can be applauded and to me it was the most pleasurable Sinhala movie experience of my lifetime.

I noticed almost all the comments on the movie come from Sri Lanka. I can understand how much this movie has been loved in his own country. Cause the story, the interpreters, everything involved in the movie belongs to Sri Lanka. But after the movie is over, editing and post production done, especially after you watch it and the lights turn on, this "Machan" belongs to the world, to everyone: it's a true story, and it's the truth about sad and unfair differences in the world, about the cruelty and necessity of a lot of people (men, women, husbands, wives, sons and daughters, father and mothers) to emigrate to survive and to help their families, about the cruelty and stupidity of a lot of European laws about immigration, about the surviving instinct all the men have, about life's meaning, in general, if we can all admit life is "the" right for everybody, and not only life\survive, but life\pursuit for happiness (just to use another Italian director\world citizen's -G. Muccino- words). And the movie reaches this big and high target using humor and levity. The hardest way. I want to thank personally Pasolini for the richness watching this movie gave me. To finish it costed only 2 euros millions. Imagine... and compare with all the expensive garbage we're forced to watch from the industry...just to make them richer, and produce more expensive garbage. I really hope this movie will be loved. It deserves it.

The trade of cinema revolves around its commercial as well as artistic aspects.This is the reason why most of the filmmakers try to achieve both artistic as well as commercial success.Machan is a film which has managed to taste both kinds of joys as it is a true entertaining film directed by Uberto Pasolini who produced "The Full Monty" which revived the fortunes of the almost dead British film industry in 1997. Humanity is evident in full force in Machan as it is one of those rare films in which tears of happiness and laughter of wisdom will flow at the same time.In Machan,Uberto Pasolini depicts a serious subject in a light manner to provide an answer to the often repeated question :why do poor people become desperate to go abroad to make money ? This is shown through a very tragic depiction of despicable poverty.Sri Lankan crew's participation makes the whole film appear a genuine exercise in realist cinema as it is based on a true story which happened in 2004.Film critic Lalit Rao saw this film at 13th IFFK 2008 in Kerala and spoke to Italian producer director Uberto Pasolini about his kind of cinema.This interview can be found on cinema-poet website.

I got the opportunity of watching "Machan" at "5th Dubai International Film Fastival-December 11-18 , 2008" on its second day, 12th.

Its yesterday, of course i couldn't stop writing about this film since i came out from the 12th theater hall of "Mall of the Emirates- Cinestar".

such gravity of writing about this film is an accident, in fact totally unexpected. anyway i reached the theater 3 hours before knowing how the Dubai behaves in such fast phased environment , always surprises take place, so to avoid any miracle there at the MOE i prepared go there in advance. timings of screening could go up or down depending on the demands or some other reasons because Dubai is an miracle island floating on money, simply on cash flow! not funny at all...

Dubai is in the other hand the place where all the youth keeping full of hopes to uplift their lives in a instantaneous fraction of time as the opportunities are superfluous. here we daily experience young people from all around the world landing for better opportunity and they will enjoy the miraculous demand supply theories of main economic system based on entertainment creation. the affordability of fantasy in Dubai is so competitive and ranges from 50 dhs to infinitely large sums of currency. the price of the dreams are vary from such a range and everybody has his destiny here.

the economic grounds play such a role in the lives of a people bounded by a simple geographical region.

comparing the same relative truths on the land of the subjective sri lanka it is always the reality of youth to become a migrant into somewhere else on this planet other than to suffer the metaphysics on its grounds.

the reality is always lot far from its imagination. sri lankan youth has this illusive mind to capture the good air in some other region of this planet. their meta dream made them such a creative to solve the paradox of visa. it is the theme of this "machan" movie.

they worked out such a solution of getting out of it.

it is nothing far beyond that to discuss the miseries all made upon this dramatic representation of the saga.

i have my own fascinations on this art work. i think it is important to express those here in this lengthy writing just to make my sign here and on your mind , thank you for your patience on reading up to this point , please keep that to a little extent too...

in the movie i found many places where i can feel the language of cinema comes out with its glory, i really fallen in love , with camera angles+light+emotions and sound.

the screen shot starting with the look back of the past of his hotel cleaner job profile, suddenly he could realize the hand dryer on the wall how it become an imaginary enemy to his symbolic code. he reacts before leaving the hotel job, as he already got visa to say goodbye to all his pity , demolishing the hand dryer. this is a very strong psychological symbolization of his anger on the system which he suffered.

the other most beautiful cinematic+dramatic instance is the scene on the gathering of telling stories about German sluts and when the one who is telling the sadistic sexuality about his past experiences , he stops somewhere in the mid of the story telling about a whip and changes the story line to another scene. after few cine minutes the scene transfers to the location where all are gathering again in front of the German Embassy waiting for the visa. everyone was concentrating on the response of the officers and one who was at the previous story telling time still in his curiosity of knowing what happened after taking out that whip out of that German sluts bed underneath, he simply asks "whip taken out, then?" its a very dramatic scene showing the inner side of the human mind of course during the struggle of overcoming everything the sexual curiosity will find it fulfillment of lack.

this movie has its own sign on the cinematic language which i felt at the dark so technical.

i would appreciate Dharmapriya Dias and Gihan Chekera on their warmth welcome at the cinema lobby as we could share a moment of pleasant time together before going into the dome of celluloid's.

i went empty into theater. i came out with rich feelings on cine magics...

some likes enjoying the pity in dramatic form , for me it makes me to think different. this movie has big potential on making a real difference in youth aspects towards the myths of illegal migration.