The Spectre Watches Over Her (2017)

• 84%
• 2017
• Documentary
• Rajee Samarasinghe

A reaction to the seminal text by Swiss anthropologist Paul Wirz entitled 'Exorcism and the Art of Healing in Ceylon,' this high contrast hand processed film considers a history of colonialism and ethnographic practices in South Asia. Memories from my mother's own elusive past emerge as I begin to locate her personal narrative within ethnographic material. At my mother's village, I restaged an exorcism once performed on her in the early 1960s when she was a little girl. Possessed by the lecherous entity known as the Kalu Kumara, the Sanni Yakuma healing ritual was performed over a 12-hour period. 'The Spectre Watches Over Her,' examines how a history of watching has shaped a cultural perception and identity. The title refers to Paul Gauguin's 'Manao tupapau.