Court is about such entrenched divisions that mark our society, but connecting all these disparate threads is the central question of identity. Narayan Kamble is a folk singer who is charged with abetting the suicide of Vasudev Pawar, a sewage worker who kills himself allegedly after listening to one of Kamble's songs. The movie centres on the case that the police build against Kamble.
On the one hand, there is Vinay Vora, the suave lawyer defending Kamble. On the other is the unnamed public prosecutor who is certain that Kamble deserves to be imprisoned. Presiding over the case is the unnamed judge, an uncharismatic character who sticks by the rules even when they defy logic. (In one scene, he refuses to hear another case because the female client is wearing a sleeveless shirt, which he dubs an "immodest dress".)
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The beauty of Court is that it presents a scathing critique of the Indian justice system without turning any of the dramatis personae into villains. Vora builds a terrific case to exonerate his client, even at one point shelling out Rs 1 lakh as bail amount. His personal life is a different kettle of fish altogether, given to shopping at upmarket stores and joining friends for drinks at tony pubs.
The public prosecutor is a thorough family woman who serves dinner to her husband and kids before settling down to study her case. We see her taking the local train to and from work (as against Vora who drives his own car) and visiting a nondescript Mumbai restaurant for lunch with her family.
The only truly extraordinary person here is Kamble who has devoted his life to rousing the lower castes to protest their inhumane treatment. He is believed to have sung a song in Pawar's presence that beseeches sewer workers to kill themselves, because that, in his view, is the only way to earn dignity. When the judge asks him if he indeed sang such a song, Kamble refuses but adds that he can certainly see himself writing such a thing. The judge admonishes him, piling him with an assortment of rules that are as meaningless as they are unavoidable.
Of course, there is no justice in this system. When Pawar's wife is called in for questioning, she reveals the diabolical conditions sewer workers work under. No protection from the noxious gases, no equipment to clean the filth. "How did he know the sewer was safe to enter?" Vora asks. "If he could see cockroaches emerge from the manhole, he would go inside, otherwise not," she replies.
Identity is refracted in Court through other, subtler prisms. Vora is Gujarati and keeps requesting the court to encourage everyone to speak in Hindi or English, lest he miss some crucial detail. But most of the conversation carries on in Marathi. Even Kamble, whom Vora is defending, prefers Marathi. Juxtaposed against the scene from the play, where "bhaiyas" from UP are kicked out of the "manoos" household, the reality of the courtroom is ironic. It is the outsider, a Gujarati, who defends a man fighting for the underprivileged, while it is the manoos who is keen to send him to jail.
There are no solutions here, only a steady gaze on the long, purposeless grind of the wheels of justice. Date after date is expended on the case, with little resolution. Even after he gets bail, Kamble refuses to "behave" himself, and is arrested soon. The sessions court goes into a month-long recess, and the case drags on. Life goes on for everyone, including the judge who visits an amusement park with his family and friends where he dispenses advice on numerology.
This is Chaitanya Tamhane's first film and in spite of the differences in their subject matter, it reminded me of 2013's Lunchbox. That film was about the doomed love affair between a loner and a married woman who establish a bond via letters sent in a lunchbox. Like that film, Court relies as much on the unspoken as it does on the articulated.
We are seeing a new cinema emerging from India, one whose anger is internal, whose treatment of the gravest subject matter understated. Perhaps it's a reflection of how old we have become as a country, which even at the ripe age of 60, continues to battle the most divisive social neuroses. A new breed of filmmakers is now narrating our stories with a pleasing artlessness. These films hit so hard precisely because it is hard to remember that they are fictive. What a wonderful time to be an Indian filmgoer!
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