Police officers trot out myriad excuses for going slow with an investigation, but in Prasanna Vithanage’s ‘Paradise’, being screened in the World Cinema category at the 28th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), the sergeant supposed to lead an investigation into a robbery utters perhaps one of the most outlandish, yet basic, excuses for not venturing out of the station.
The police vehicles are short of fuel. But, when you get into the context in which he says it, the excuse appears quite justifiable, for the events are happening in Sri Lanka in 2022, when the country was mired in political and economic crisis.
How much attention can the police force give to a stolen laptop in that situation? But, as later events show, those with enough privilege can get the entire force scurrying to search for even a missing pen. Keshav (Roshan Mathew), an Indian filmmaker who has landed up in the country with his partner Amritha (Darshana Rajendran) to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary, is the epitome of that privilege. The guy is aware of it too, in the way he says that he is doing a favour to the Sri Lankans to be touring their country at a time when the economy is in shambles.
