Court
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Film description
When a sewer worker dies in Mumbai, the police rule his death a suicide. Narayan Kamble, an activist and folk singer, finds himself in the dock. According to witnesses, it was one of his songs that drove the sewer worker to take his own life. The prosecutor seeks the harshest possible sentence, the defence lawyer attempts to prove the charges groundless, and the judge refuses to release the elderly man on bail, despite the fact that imprisonment is taking a toll on his health.
Is this, then, a classic American-style courtroom drama? Far from it. Chaitanya Tamhane takes a different approach, focusing not so much on Kamble’s actual guilt as on the process of establishing the evidence, which at times resembles a farce, only without the comedy. Seen through the eyes of a Kafkaesque protagonist, the law becomes a system in which prejudice is cloaked in absurd regulations, leaving the individual with no chance of understanding it. Court is a precisely drawn portrait of contemporary India, where modernity blends with folk traditions, class discrimination remains deeply entrenched, and the corridors of justice are haunted by the ghosts of the colonial past.
text:
Blanka K. Dżugaj
Chaitanya Tamhane
An Indian director, screenwriter and producer born in 1987, he made his feature debut with Court (2014), which brought him international recognition and won the Orizzonti Award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival. It was also selected as India’s submission for the Academy Awards. Among those intrigued by Court was Alfonso Cuarón, who invited Tamhane to observe the production of Roma. Cuarón later served as executive producer on Tamhane’s next film, The Disciple, which premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival and earned the director the FIPRESCI Prize.
2011 Six Strands (short)
2014 Proces / Court
2020 Uczeń / The Disciple
