“Do you like me or your mother?” asks an imposing Ganapathy at the start of P.S. Vinothraj’s majestic directorial debut, which won the prestigious Tiger Award at the 2021 International Film Festival Rotterdam. The irascible man then drags his reticent son to a distant village with the hope of getting his estranged wife to return. After an acrid encounter with his in-laws, Ganapathy commands his kid, “From now on you have no mother, only a father.” 

What proceeds is a sublime stretch of pure cinema, as the father charts a fury road through rural Tamil Nadu barrens, followed by a child clinging desperately to hopes of family. The story, buoyed by the randomness of metaphysical encounter, enters the realm of fable, mirage, even prayer, in a land undergoing steady desertification. Vinothraj crafts spare, intimate vignettes linked by rigorous tracking shots that set the expressive physicality of actors Karuththadaiyaan and Chellapandi against the grandeur of rock formations and lineages of scorched earth. Interchangeable are the sun and the son. Ineffable is the ferocity of women waiting by rat holes and dried wells. Fixated, however, is a drunkard’s breathing, as his child hangs on, if not like a rock, then a pebble.

DIRECTOR

Vinothraj P.S. is an Indian filmmaker. While working in a DVD shop in Chennai, he was introduced to people from the Tamil film industry. This led to him becoming assistant director on two films by A. Sargunam. After working as an assistant theatre director, he began making his own films. Pebbles (2021) is his feature film debut with its world premiere at IFFR.