Exorcising traumas: Jude Ratnam’s Demons in Paradise (2017)

ABSTRACT Jude Ratnam’s 2017 Demons in Paradise explores the aftermath of the civil war by embarking on a personal and intimate odyssey during which different past traumas are revisited. The present collaborative article is the result of the authors’ presentation of the film itself in presence of Jude Ratnam during a series of talks in cinemas in France in 2018 and 2019 during which numerous exchanges and discussions took place. The paper will first focus on the demons of the colonial legacy left by the British and how the divides broadened by the former imperial power exacerbated ethnic and religious tensions between Tamils and Sinhalese. In the second part, this paper will explore how Jude Ratnam explores and dramatises past traumas, to propose a form of ethics of the gaze questioning the political aporias of the post-war peacebuilding process and the hegemonic narrative of resistance imposed by the LTTE.