Koozhangal

While watching this, I was reminded of the incident where my other brothers and I were carrying bundles of sheep's worms in the scorching sun on our big brother's sheep farm and pouring them back and forth into the pits that had been dug for manure!

As a reminder of that, it stood out in my mind as a memorial tree and seed!

A journey through the desert to reach the village where father and son live, it becomes a representation of the family, patriarchal power and the division of the sexes. Despite a drunken and violent father, the son follows him (perhaps he will also become a drunken and violent father). There is good handling of the camera (in the long shot in the village), but the length is long for the scope of the narration.

We that is the film federation of India is still wearing the glasses of 60s.

Whereas world has moved ahead.

I still don't see any sense in showing such cinema, besides pandering to the white man's burden syndrome. You showcase abject misery and shine it as rat used to do. Comeon guys noone has time for such shenanigans in today's world.

Raise issues and suggest solutions. Raising abject hopelessness serves noone neither the viewer nor the team of such projects.

Big thumbs down for art cinema of 60s. A breed that is extinct and for good.

This movie portrays the other side of the world because there are still villages in India especially in Tamilnadu that doesn't have access to good transportation. The school portrayed in this movie is a typical example of thousands of schools still existing in Tamil Nadu. The alcoholic and abusive fathers and helpless wives and families, a lot of them still exist. While some people experiencing all luxuries in the world, there are still people who don't know the meaning of the word 'luxury'. There are people in the world who catch, fry and eat rats because they can't afford anything beyond. This is a hard hitting movie, a reality check. Just not for everyone. Silence and the little boy's eyes speak volumes in this movie.

Greetings again from the darkness. Movies don't get the credit they deserve for opening our eyes to other cultures and providing a snapshot into the lives of others ... lives often unimaginable to us. Another aspect of World Cinema is that it serves as a reminder that people are people all over the globe. Dreams and disappointments are simply a part of the human existence. Often we recognize more similarities than we previously thought. Such is the case with the debut feature film from writer-director P. S. Vinothraj. This is India's official submission for the Foreign Language Academy Award.

Ganapathy (played by Karuththadaiyann) marches purposefully through the village until he finds his son, Velu (Chellapandi), in the school room. The abrasive father brazenly inquires if the boy prefers him or his mother. It's not a question the young boy dares answer. As the two begin their journey, it's clear the man is angry, annoyed, abusive, and we soon learn, alcoholic. He seems ready to burst with pent-up energy and emotion. His goal is to travel to another village and bring back his wife, who returned to her family ... and his demeanor leaves little doubt as to why.

The trip involves a bus ride and long walk on the sunbaked dirt trail through the rocky and mountainous desert. The father doesn't so much walk as stomp, while the small boy follows behind in hopes of minimizing the abuse. Of course, as kids often do, Velu finds his ways to rebel, despite the risk of another slap upside the head.

With only minimal dialogue, director Vinothraj serves up visual storytelling at its finest. The filmmaker is obsessed with details ... right down to minutiae. The camera sometimes lingers as if to force us to go deeper than merely noticing something - a woman loading water jugs on a bus, a family catching-prepping-cooking rats for consumption, or a young boy's collection of the smooth rocks (pebbles) he tucks into his cheek to generate saliva. The remarkable, extended closing shot of women painstakingly filling bottles with precious water is culmination of what we've just watched - a slice of life demonstrating how life is complex even in the most remote areas of India, and yet no dissimilar to what we experience.