Court (Chaitanya Tamhane)

We had more than enough number of court room dramas, produced in Bollywood, Tollywood and all types of woods. But this Court, Chaitanya Tamhane’s impressive debut, flays India’s justice system while commenting on class, education and access to power with conviction. It is hilarious and heart breaking. It's a brilliant film, particularly for a debutant. In a film industry that sells half-baked fantasies and jerkers and is constantly churning out movies like fast food, this Court is a breath of fresh air.

This film shows us a man's life and another man's death can be the stuff of laughter when they're part of a case being heard at a lower court in Mumbai.

Narayan Kamble (Vira Sathidar), 65, is a part-time tutor and social activist bard who tours with his troupe around working-class communities in Mumbai and surrounding areas. He’s arrested and charged with inciting a sewage worker to commit suicide after listening to one of Kamble’s songs. It's clear from the very beginning that there's no case against Kamble. The sewage worker lived in a chawl where Kamble had performed -- that's all the connection that exists between the two men., But it's enough circumstantial evidence for the police to arrest the poet . The charges are enough for a jaded public prosecutor to go on argueing for months.

Defence attorney Vinay Vora (Vivek Gomber) argues the case before Judge Sadavarte (Pradeep Joshi). The public prosecutor Nutan (Geetanjali Kulkarni) is aboriously reading aloud from obsolete laws, and relying on the testimony of a lone witness who has obviously been coached. Vora objects to Nutan’s leading questions and irrelevant arguments, yet the judge isn’t especially interested in anything apart from procedural issues.

While the court room scenes use the legal system’s Leviathanic rules, sequences showing the advocates post working hours reveal the sorts of influences and lives led by the two sides through exceptional observations.  Vora shops for fine Western cheeses and wines in an upscale market and goes drinking at a chic bar where an Indian singer performs English and Brazilian songs. He’s a member of India’s globalized elite. But he also participates on panel discussion about social responsibility. It means that in a country like India, a guy like Vora with  his social connections could easily get  a high-paying position,  but  he chooses to be a public defender.

When public prosecutor Nutan leaves work, she picks her son up from school, goes home, makes dinner, which is consumed by the family in front of the TV. If they go out, their option is not a fancy restaurant.  In  class terms, she’s closer to the people she’s prosecuting than Vora is. Though she lacks broad compassion, she’s not wicked.

People like Vora, from a high social caste, have not only a sense of social justice but also the luxury of concerning themselves with people lower on the class scale; for Nutan and Judge Sadavarte, such an interest is unthinkable. Then there’s Kamble, a Dalit, (untouchable) whose mission is to make the masses aware of their rights, and expose the injustice of a system which keeps them down. Sathidar, an activist rather than an actor, is a terrifically charismatic and compelling entertainer when onstage. Worth singling out in this regard is Usha Bane as the dead sewer worker’s widow, in a role not far removed from her own story.

Barring the two lawyers, played by theatre actors Geetanjali Kulkarni and Vivek Gomber, most of the cast is made up of non-actors. For example, Kamble is played by Vira Sathidar, editor of the Marathi magazine Vidrohi. Some of the boldest casting choices in the film are in the smaller roles, like that of Sharmila Pawar, the wife of the dead sewage worker. Sharmila's part is played by Usha Bane who is actually a widow of a man who died because he was not given the kind of equipment that he should have had while working in sewers. The dialogues in English, Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati, add to the realism of the film.

This film also implicates the country’s education system, which creates skilled professionals lacking in independent thinking.

Tamhane is rational and humane in his approach.  He has a feel for naturalism that extends beyond mere performance. His portrayal of lives outside the courtroom provides texture and depth, making this well-rounded depiction of a dysfunctional judiciary an engrossing piece of cinema.

He makes it clear that the problem isn’t simply with what’s on the books, but also with the people pedantically interpreting them.

Chaitanya Tamhane's debut feature, Court, presents the audience with a slice of life from the country's lower courts. The idea of justice in these rooms turns out to be a joke.