The application of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey to the Sri Lankan Award-Winning Classic film "Purahanda Kaluwara" ("Death on a Full Moon Day")

Abstract

This research paper presents the analysis of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey framework in the doyen classic Sri Lankan film Purahanda Kaluwara (Death on a Full Moon Day) directed by Prasanna Vithanage. The film is about the story of a father who loses his son in the active service around the Sri Lankan civil war. The paper illustrates the journey through the several stages of Joseph Cambells Hero's Journey by looking at the plot of the film and the development of its characters with special focus on the character of Wannihami. The treatment offered buries his adventure in the most revered steps of the journeys of a hero as the world knows the works and concepts of Joseph Cambell. At the same time, this paper explores how the stories told transcend teh universal structural features of storytelling and leans towards the cultural and emotional specificities of the storyline of Wannihami. This paper illustrates the applicability of Campbell’s structure to the analysis of different plots and brings forth the inspiring reincarnation as the reality of the film, overcoming the pain and seeking for the truth. It, too, explores the narrative scope and cultural outreach of Sri Lankan cinema through the example of the Hero’s Journey approach applied to a local film. This provides also a means of understanding the growth and change as universal themes.