Court ***
Dir: Chaitanya
Tamhane. With: Vira Sathidar, Vivek Gomber, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Pradeep Joshi.
116 mins. Cert: PG
This drolly
enlightening dispatch from India’s indie sector has the inspired idea of
appropriating a Mumbai courtroom as a focal point for the nation’s many ails:
trace elements of colonialism, generational and sectarian conflict, a certain
infrastructural liability. The trumped-up trial of a folk singer accused of
inciting a fan’s suicide provides its own intricately involving procedural
drama, yet writer-director Chaitanya Tamhane makes both a joke and point by
keeping his camera at a critical remove from the action, the better to observe
dawdlers arriving mid-argument and a marked status gap yawning open between the
main players. As in countless comedies, the law is again made to appear
something of an ass – arbitrary and distractible, if not this time corruptible
– yet the rigorous writing and playing suggests Tamhane is wholly serious in
his intent. Here’s a filmmaker training a sharp, prosecutorial eye on those
harsh homefront realities Bollywood has traditionally permitted audiences to
escape.
Court is now playing in selected cinemas.
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