The film was groundbreaking in Sinhala cinema shot entirely outside of a studio using one lamp and hand held lights for lighting.[3] The movie exemplifies Peries's use of family tensions to symbolize wider issues.[3]
Piyal (Henry Jayasena) is a handsome young teacher who is hired to teach English to Nanda (Punya Heendeniya), a member of an eminent family. They fall in love, but can not marry because Piyal is of a lower class. Nanda's parents instead push her into a marriage with Jinadasa (Gamini Fonseka), who is of the same class as them. With economic downturn in Sri Lanka, both families lose their status and Jinadasa leaves to try to make a better life for himself; he never achieves his goal and dies penniless. Piyal and Nanda can now finally come together. They have changed; the earlier idyllic nature of their relationship is not recaptured.
Lester James Peries admired Martin Wickramsinghe's work and was inspired to attempt an adaption of Wickramasinghe's novel Gamperaliya into a movie in 1964.[3] Wickremasinghe was initially reluctant thinking it wouldn't make a good movie, but eventually agreed.[3] Scholar Regie Siriwardene was asked to script the film.[8]
Reception
Playwright Ediriweera Sarachchandra championed the film writing "At last a Sinhalese film has been made which we could show the world without having to hide our heads in shame. I want to say a great film has been made of a great novel." British director Lindsay Anderson hailed "its elegiac, near-Chekhovian grace."[9]
