During the most tense moments in Pebbles, the little boy leading the film wears a quizzical expression, watching his angry dad with an open mouth and furrowed brows. The unpleasant journey from the dad's native place to the mother's must not be new to him as it is to you, the viewer. He rests his schoolbag in a shed, picks up a toy for his baby sister and leaves with the dad who looks ready to beat everyone up at the slightest hint of offence.
The film, which received many accolades including the official Indian nomination for the Oscars, has real life inspirations. Director PS Vinothraj spoke about it after the first screening of Pebbles at the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK).
The father becomes a figure of terror as soon as you meet him, pulling the child out of school and speaking unkindly to him through the trip. The child hardly answers his angry questions and gives the same questioning look when the man talks cruelly about the mother. They are on their way to fetch the boy’s mother and his sister back home. The father prepares the boy with a 'threat' to pass on to the mother if she doesn't come home.
As the story is narrated, images emerge like stills waiting to be photographed. At the bus stop the father-son duo stand apart from each other looking in opposite directions. Click one. Inside the bus, a young mother sits nursing a sleeping baby, alone in the back seat. Click two. Courtesy, the cinematography of Vignesh Kumulai and Jeya Parthipan. The camera forces you to look at the rustic rural paths as the boy blows up a balloon and holds it outside the window.
Yuvan Shankar Raja's gentle music brushes past the calmness in the air, ready to be broken by the tempers of a violent man.
Watch: Trailer of Pebbles
Sure enough, a fight breaks out between the dad and another man, and the mother and baby in the backseat, shaken awake, are soon left in a deserted landscape. Their departure is clearly symbolic of many things going wrong.
Finally, at the boy's mother's village, you wait with bated breath wondering what will become of the poor woman when this mean man will see her. He has been cursing her loudly for everything that has gone wrong, though she is nowhere in the picture. Vinothraj's script brilliantly incorporates the magnitude of domestic abuse without a single shot of the physical act. There are shots of the boy being thrown to the ground, but the blows become sounds in the background as the camera looks elsewhere, unwilling to watch anything cruel. But there are no tears or loud cries from the boy, only daring acts of rebellion and defence.
Alcoholism is thrown in as a core cause for all the violence. But what is more worrisome is the acceptance of it as a helpless situation for the woman. Her family fears a widowed daughter more than an abused daughter or a dead daughter. ‘It will be her fate’, wails an aged mother.
In the treatment of a serious subject, Vinothraj sprinkles elements of fantasy, mystery and picturesque moments that soothe the eye. The shot of a girl scattering twigs that fall like winged creatures around her is a cosy distraction, perhaps another symbolic gesture of what life should be for a child.
There is also an intelligent use of props, a green toy, a broken piece of mirror (which adds to a few lighter moments) and of course the pebbles. But none of it would have come handy if it weren't for the tremendous performance of the child actor (Chellapandi). And a promising one by the father (Karuththadaiyaan).