This drolly enlightening dispatch from India’s indie sector has the inspired idea of appropriating a Mumbai courtroom as a focal point for some of the nation’s many ills: 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 film-maker training a sharp, prosecutorial eye on those harsh homefront realities Bollywood has traditionally permitted audiences to escape.
