Screenplay, Director: Chaitanya Tamhane
I remember a joke someone told recently.
There was once a 75-year-old man who was brought to a magistrate. The spreadsheet showed that the accused was charged with molesting a 17-year-old girl.
This Marathi movie is said to be one of the best made Indian movies ever made, as described by big movie stars and filmmakers. Unfortunately, if the proof of the success of a movie is in its box-office collection, it did miserably despite receiving multiple international accolades. It was made by a debutante director who received inspiration after spending a day in an Indian court. It was a world of difference from the usual melodrama-filled court drama often depicted on the silver screen. And that is what this film is all about. He tried to illustrate the sombre mood at the courts and how the wheel of justice moves ever so slowly. He goes on to show how the officers of the court, including the judge, the public prosecutor and the defence lawyer, just go on with their lives, seemingly detached from the devasting effects their actions or inactions can have on the fate of people they are entrusted with trying. The lawyers are not as passionate, assertive or demonstrative as police dramas show us.
'Court' centres around a 65-year-old folk singer-teacher-social worker who is charged for enticing a sanitation worker to commit suicide via his songs. An archaic law still in force, making it a crime to sing inciteful songs, is probably a colonial legacy. A sanitation worker apparently entered a manhole without any protective apparatus with the suicide in his mind, it is alleged.
The folk singer denies everything. He did not know his songs had such effects on his listeners. He is defended by a well-heeled activist and defence lawyer who is well versed in English, Hindi and Gujerati but not Marathi, in which the whole court proceeding is conducted. Then there is the feisty prosecutor who morphs into a housewife and a mother outside the courts. The judge, we soon learn, believes in numerology and can also be impulsive when challenged outside the courts. The filmmakers humanise all the characters. They are never overtly good or bad, but just products of the space and social construct they grow.
The magistrate looked at the 75-year-old and asked, "Why? At this age, why all these? A 17-year-old?"
The accused replied, "Sir, I was also 17 when the incident happened!"
That pretty much explains how slow the legal machinery works and how farcical some of the red tapes are.
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| Sorry to keep you waiting! Doctors are humans too, they need to eat. |
The men in robes (and women) argue about the most frivolous point and drag their feet to put an end to the misery that the legal system places on the Joe Public. For them, it is another day in paradise, appearing important and flaunting their verbosity. It is another day of loss of income and the uncertainty of the unknown for the average Joe.
The public looks upon the members of the legal system as someone larger than life, living true to the tenets of life and holding 'the truth' close to their hearts in everything they do. Lest we forget, they are also human beings crumbling to the trappings of life.
The public looks upon the members of the legal system as someone larger than life, living true to the tenets of life and holding 'the truth' close to their hearts in everything they do. Lest we forget, they are also human beings crumbling to the trappings of life.
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| If songs can kill |
This Marathi movie is said to be one of the best made Indian movies ever made, as described by big movie stars and filmmakers. Unfortunately, if the proof of the success of a movie is in its box-office collection, it did miserably despite receiving multiple international accolades. It was made by a debutante director who received inspiration after spending a day in an Indian court. It was a world of difference from the usual melodrama-filled court drama often depicted on the silver screen. And that is what this film is all about. He tried to illustrate the sombre mood at the courts and how the wheel of justice moves ever so slowly. He goes on to show how the officers of the court, including the judge, the public prosecutor and the defence lawyer, just go on with their lives, seemingly detached from the devasting effects their actions or inactions can have on the fate of people they are entrusted with trying. The lawyers are not as passionate, assertive or demonstrative as police dramas show us.
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In reality, the worker did not commit suicide. There are simply not enough protective gears to go around. The blame goes back to workers and others in the vulnerable groups. |
The folk singer denies everything. He did not know his songs had such effects on his listeners. He is defended by a well-heeled activist and defence lawyer who is well versed in English, Hindi and Gujerati but not Marathi, in which the whole court proceeding is conducted. Then there is the feisty prosecutor who morphs into a housewife and a mother outside the courts. The judge, we soon learn, believes in numerology and can also be impulsive when challenged outside the courts. The filmmakers humanise all the characters. They are never overtly good or bad, but just products of the space and social construct they grow.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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