Director: Krishantha Dayananda
Writer: Krishantha Dayananda
Running time: 15mins
Feeling less knowledgeable than you did before is probably not the ideal way to exit a documentary; but Emotional Steps is not really a documentary in any way. A slick package of dance, music and business-speak, it feels more like a moving university prospectus, than any kind of interrogation of any broader themes.
That isn’t to say I think Krishantha Dayananda has done a bad job in that respect. The Pallekale International Buddhist University (also known for reasons never explained as SIBA) will undoubtedly be very pleased with this neatly packaged publicity – which professes to follow a young woman as she decides to enrol in its curriculum.
Despite appearing to be the central subject of the story, she remains completely silent for all but the final minute of the film – at which point she reads a pre-written statement about the university, and its efforts to keep alive Sri Lanka’s centuries-old dance traditions; and then launches into a beautiful (but un-translated) song in Sinhala. The issue with that is, we never hear why any of this resonates with her – or her class-mates.
The only person we do hear from extensively (also in evidently well-rehearsed statements) is the Diyawadana Nilame (the university’s custodian and head-teacher), Pradeep Nilanga Dela. He explains that his goal is to make sure these ancient dance traditions – which are dying out – not only survive, but thrive; along with the students who he also ensures get an education in English and information technology. This, he says, will help them go out and “win in the world”.
Again, however, the lack of further questioning means the audience is still in the dark about certain things – unless they are details which they already know and care about. For the rest of us, it’s not clear what the stakes are: the teacher seems reluctant to even speculate on why the dances have become endangered; there is no note on the wider state of traditional culture in Sri Lankan society, or what benefits it brings that may be lost with it; and there is also no word of what impact any of this actually has on the lives of the students. In some form, the audience needs to be told or shown what would happen if SIBA didn’t exist.
What we do get is a long list of investments from various national and international backers. The university was first able to found itself thanks to Rs. 110 million gifted by the Government of Norway – before the “yeoman effort” of the Diyawadana Nilame apparently procured a total of Rs. 450 million, including grants from other non-profits and the local government, to build the wider facility. There are lots of bright, sharp images of the modern hallways, and more wonderfully choreographed dance segments, to hint that this was money well-spent. But again, the reasons it might be a worthy investment are stuck on this superficial level.
There is too little to inform us of what this really means for anyone, on a material basis or indeed a spiritual one – which seems important to SIBA, as it also teaches meditation and social engagement to its students. That might also not be an issue if it were only supposed to communicate with Sri Lankan viewers; but the film is also clearly concerned with spreading its message to an international audience, who simply won’t be clued in well enough for it to resonate. We don’t even learn who or what a Diyawadana Nilame is – I had to do some of my own Googling, and may well have made an arse of my own explanation (for which I apologise in advance, but which could have been avoided if Emotional Steps bothered to help me out here).
Reeling off total investment figures, details of the curriculum, and how many graduates you have seen pass through your halls makes for a great advert for a university; but it makes for a poor documentary. Emotional Steps is beautifully shot, and tightly edited, but it ultimately feels over-produced; a project more concerned with helping SIBA to cultivate a certain image, rather than investigate why that image matters in the first place. For that, a film that should be telling an important story about cultural preservation, and community history, feels inconsequential.