Artistically shot movie has great performances

THE recently concluded London Indian Film Festival had the UK premiere of Tamil language film Koozhangal (Pebbles), which had previously won the Tiger Award at this year’s International Film Festival of Rotterdam.

Set in rural India, the Tamil language film starts off with a sullen looking man taking his son from a village school and asking him forthrightly, ‘do you like me or your mother.’ What follows is the poor villager, who is a chain-smoking drunkard, and his young son going on a journey through the desolate Tamil Nadu landscape to find his wife, who has fled their home with her young daughter. There is a bus journey and a long walk home on a blisteringly hot day.

The debut feature film from PS Vinothraj looks at the troubled relationship between a short-tempered father and his quiet son. Although this is a character study of the two main protagonists with polar-opposite personalities, the real hero of this film is the magnificent cinematography that beautifully captures the vastness of rural life. The unforgiving desolate landscape and those who reside in it are artistically captured by breathtakingly beautiful camerawork that includes stunning longshots.

There is great artistry in each frame and makes the viewer feel they are taking a trip through the barren land. There are great lead performances and the extreme harshness is captured well. What this film has in terms of setting, camerawork, stunning shots and welldefined protagonists, it lacks in storyline. The film ends suddenly, and you are left wanting to know more about the family you have become invested in, including the wife who ran away.

You are left to imagine what will happen next and feel like it’s just another day for this young boy. Although the story is frustratingly thin, the film is worth finding for the artistry and will make the viewer feel like they have taken a long walk through an unforgiving land.