The final outcome doesn’t make us a voyeur but a companion: we stroll inside a foreign setting, yet feel like a native. Vinothraj leaves us alone with the characters and images – there are no voiceovers, few filmmaking cues – presenting a ravaged world unvarnished. But the magic of the film lies in the way it is told – deriving its powers from silence and visual storytelling. It almost risks being an art-house cliché: a sparse quiet drama, much like the lives of its characters, where nothing much happens. Its story can be summarised in a short sentence. Koozhangal doesn’t rely on revealing dialogues or intricate plot turns. Vinothraj P.S.’s debut, Koozhangal (Pebbles), which won the top prize at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, unfolds as a day in the life of a village, where rains have evaporated, turning farmers into hunters: they roast rats for lunch.
The setting, a hamlet in Tamil Nadu, resembles a desert: barren lands, despairing trees, stale trails. The father and son barely talk they walk, and walk, and walk some more. The first half on a local bus, the other half on foot – barefoot, in punishing heat, a journey that doesn’t seem to end. A drunk man, a bleak village, a reluctant son – and a long journey to the wife’s home, asking her to return.
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