Jetwing Yala launches Bombay Velvet film Set tour
By Juliet Coombe
Bombay Velvet set while filming
The multi million dollar priceless 1950/60s era Bombay Velvet film is finally out and people are already talking about the amazing set built at the Mahinda Rajapakse film city in Ranminitenna, Tissa. Jetwing Yala Hotel was where all the major stars stayed through out the filming in Yala and general manager Gamunu got in on the action as a film extra and can add more than a little extra incite into the biggest film to be shot in the country since Indiana Jones and The Temple Of Doom was made in 1984 in Kandy. So no one could be more excited about this new tour, well except for Hiran Ukwatte who discovered Ananda College has been plonked right in the middle of the set and looks so good it could be the real thing.
Ananda college
From the moment you arrive there is a buzz in the air as people wait to book the open-air buggy to go around the film set that is a 45-minute walk away from the main gate. You can wait in the café area for your turn to be taken around the set, which costs 500 rupees for the transport and takes about 20 minutes to see a the city of Bombay and weirdly a recreation of Ananda College for a recent TV drama shoot. Here you will see everything from street side tailor shops, to a missing poster for a little girl that makes one slightly sad to think what fate would have befallen her, to paan stalls, cinema advertising 1950s style to the latest talkies of the time and magnificent arches made of rigi foam, the fake city accurately represents the actuality of a city that hides it’s seedy underbelly of sex and vice behind its opulent facades. Here on the recreated main street high fashion stores like the Modern Beauty shop in the main arcade and colonial architecture in regimented bricks have many a seedy story to tell about the on and off set filming.
What is left of the Bombay velvet they created a whole city
Cobblestone streets reveal second hand book stalls with catchy titles like Revolution in the Revolution, Daphne du Maurier’s French Mans Creek, World War 11 tales all revel in the anger and the angst of the newly independent India and the winning points of the war. Walk in any direction from the hang out area of the film studio sets and discover blue kade stalls selling Indian style cheroots with beattle nut boxes hand painted, shoe repairers with all sizes of souls and street barbers are all part of this period dramas appeal that reveals just how dark and devious the 50s in Bombay were.
The saucy posters of the Bombay Velvet Jazz Club are just a small indicator of what lies under the surface of this city of gin sin. Even its vintage signs that remain from the filming are suggestive with hand painted cover lines advising one not to go wild. Hard not to in a location so close to Yala, Sri Lanka’s most popular national park in which the peacocks calls are nearly as frequent as the resistive performance of the dancers to Garam, Garam one of the many jazz songs in the movie. Just one reminder of how remote the set is from its origins and how rich the voodoo of the location is due to the incredible detail and texture given to every aspect of the props, architecture and costume styling. The sound of the crickets is only broken by the gasps of adoring fans going in search of the locations of their favourite scenes and to take a shot of themselves on the tram that is one of the gems of the studio.
The BV doors are there but have lost their shine
The tall and imposing Bombay Velvet night club’s façade has lost its red neon signage, but still has its signature gold and glass doors setting the tone for the whole of the film’s visual style; definitely the piece de resistance of the brother and sister duo of set designers. Look further into the windows of the night club and you will find the Alfred Hitchcock film To Catch a Thief advertised, possibly an intentional hint of the film’s dark undertone which sets out to break barriers and redraw the lines between the fantasy happy ending-loving, boy meets girl films that sate the appetites of the subcontinent’s film going public, and gritty, honest and unashamed portrayals of a well written script.
Bombay of the 1950s was far from the dream girl’s city it was in short a place of broken dreams and dreamers, who mix and mingle as days turned into endless night. Here is a lost world, a hidden elicit sordid centre of Asia that hid its darker side selling Remington type writers that according to the ads at the time literally printed money. The Master Voice shops makes one want to flick through classic favourites like Valentino’s Tango, but sadly all the props have long since gone. Looking at the amazing shop facades promising the world everything now on this empty set feels like an illusion like the period of time itself when the real and unreal merged into darkness. Now with this exciting new Jetwing Yala trip you can see the amazing sets where it was shot and in a half-day trip discover Sri Lanka’s version of Universal Pictures. You might even get lucky and stay in one of the rooms of the stars back at the hotel that prides itself on its star quality service for all.
