11/March/2022.
Watched. My rating: 9.7/10.
Some of the best films in the world are being made by people of whom you have never heard of. And this film is a prime example of that.
Court is a story set in contemporary Mumbai and follows a lawyer of a not-so-young Marathi poet/activist who gets arrested for allegedly abetting a sewerage worker's alleged suicide. Accused of singing inflammatory songs during a performance of his which apparently made the worker kill himself.
As baffling as the premise sounds, it's all too familiar to the Indian ear. For we have stand up comics going to jail for cracking a joke which apparently "offended" a certain group of people. We as a society need to realize that, "I am offended!" is a meaningless statement and has no reason to be respected or taken seriously. Yes, you're offended, so what? Keep it to yourself. I know that you're an undernourished soul which is seeking to be coddled, but that's your problem. Don't put the weight of your incompetency as an individual over others. Bring your arguments, not your whinges.
As an Indian writer (I still feel the weight of impostor syndrome every time I call myself a writer) I can't tell you how many times I've been told to write stories with a "moral" in it. People boast to me that they like stories with a "positive message" in them. Alright, fine, that's your taste. Its limited as hell but very well, I don't care. It just goes to show how pampered the Indian mind really is. And not only an Indian mind, but the general audience all over the world.
They say that art should say something about something to which I say, nay sir! 'Tis not so! Art's only responsibility is to ask questions as honestly as possible. For art which answers is not art but propaganda. It is the audience's responsibility to answer. Art puts a hand over the audience's shoulder, points towards the horizon and asks what the silhouette looks like to them. Propaganda states that its a banyan tree, no more, no less.
And these are one of the many things Chaitanya Tamhane (writer/director) focuses on in his inspired work, Court. The naturalist atmosphere that the film creates captures the daily life in a way which we identify with through our literature. Remember the little sketches and drawings of neighborhoods and streets in our Hindi textbooks which we read as kids? The ones which depicted the lifestyles of different classes of people as they go about on their daily chores. Like a tailor working in his shop, a labour carrying a gunny bag or bricks on his head. A woman with a towel wrapped around her head in a temple. Kids running around.
Shot at real locations with real people, it really is a humane snapshot of a culture. Because it captures "that" literary feel of Hindi literature that I grew up with, it makes me feel very nostalgic, as you can tell.
Naturalism can also be seen in the performances. The cast is so terrifically casted that at times I thought if they had hired an actual lawyer for the character of Nutan, who acts as an antagonist in the film. Geetanjali Kulkarni played her to perfection.
And the thing is, none of the characters in the film are portrayed as "bad" people. They are good people who just have a skewed world views because of the culture in which they grew up. And you see people like them all around you; your friends, relatives, neighbors or colleagues. For instance, the judge in the film is a clearly a conservative, superstitious bigot. But, as an epilogue, you follow his character as he goes on a vacation with his family, just as you had followed Nutan as she navigated a day among her family.
And you empathize with them as people. You understand their priorities lie with their family, not if they do the right thing in their professions. Their work is simply a means to an end, to provide for their family. Nutan is a middle class mother of 2 and a loving wife who hums under her breath at the end of the day as she flips through the tomes of law to prepare for the next day of work.
Their intentions are not malignant. They are just convenient.
Court is among the most human pieces of cinema to be produced in this decade and deserves all the praise that it has gotten or will ever get.
