Reframing female bodies in Sri Lankan cinema: 28 and Asandhimitta revisited

Abstract

ABSTRACT The paper provides a comparative reading of the female protagonists in two Sri Lankan films, focusing on how the female body becomes a contentious site of gendered violence, subject to state and male surveillance and containment. Through a close analysis of Prasanna Jayakody’s 28 (2014) and Asoka Handagama’s Asandhimitta (2019), this paper attempts to reveal how Sri Lankan cinema violently reconfigures the female body as a site of negotiation for articulation of victimhood and desire and becomes a potential space for the inscription of feminist issues.