Tense atmosphere, raging characters, an almighty jury & clear protagonist whom we follow and root for. These are the troupes that typically make up a court-room drama, and if you watch any television or follow cinema, at some point you might have come across one. Now don’t get me wrong some of most acclaimed films & shows have been court room drama like 12 angry men(1957), anatomy of a murder(1959), a few good men(1992) to name a few.
But the problem is, they more or less follow the same formula with all the troupes that I mentioned above, even to this day the same rules are applied to the genre that were well established about 50 years ago.
But there is a film that revolutionised the genre, the film follows none of the troupes & does not heed to any of the formulas. It breaks and questions all these rules just like the subject it covers.
The film is 2015’s court written and directed by Chaitanya Tamanhe. It follows social activist poet Narayan Kamble who, during a public performance gets arrested on charges of indirectly abetting the alleged suicide. The case involved a manhole worker who went in the sewer without any safety gear in order to kill himself, after he had supposedly heard a song of Kamble in his neighbourhood wherein Kamble incited sanitation workers to kill themselves in protest of their working conditions. But existence of any such song is denied by Kamble and his troupe.
We need to understand that a case only arises and goes for a hearing into court when one party holds the other accountable for a wrong doing and believes that their actions were against the law while the alleged believes their actions were well within & hence a conflict arises for the court to step into.
Now Kamble’s case might seem dismissive to any logical individual yet the state holds him accountable for abetting the suicide and the case drags on. At this point it becomes important that we realise that law isn’t absolute, it’s interpreted. Then, who is responsible for the interpretation becomes important because each person comes to the table with their own set of prejudices and biases, values, and ethical and moral conditioning.
Hence a examination of these abstracts becomes necessary specially when freedom of an old man is at stake, this is exactly what court aims at, the film takes us at grass-root levels to neutrally examine the accumulation these values, how they are interpreted, how basis are formed and how they play-out in formation of real world understanding.
Films goes at great lengths in its cinematic choices, casting crew and story telling to achieve that and taking a look at some at of these choices might perhaps help us, as an audience to understand and appreciate the film better.
Camera Framing
The film takes an alleged liking for establishing shots as well as stable shot, rarely do we see the camera move close up or track in on any subject, the characters constantly walk in and out of the frame yet the camera remains stable. This creates a feeling of neutral observation and helpless as the events play out.
These wide shots are often accompanied by longer takes each shot seems to begin or end with an extra beat in order to convey a more vibrant sense of life happening outside of the main action, which initially might seem pointless protraction but on a closer look, they are often crammed with convincing detail and invaluable social/environmental context of subjects that we deal with.
Actors
Film’s casting process was long & tedious one which took near about 10 months to complete all due to a demand for a non impressionistic acting and low characterisation, which meant overcharacteristation, humanisation and charisma that professional actors bring along was not suited, hence non actors were preferred & convincing these first time non trained actors that their lack of conventional acting skills was actually a requirement and not a hindrance was itself a herculean task. Many casted people actually belonged to the world represented film like Vira Sathidar who plays Narayan Kamable is a real life activist/poet hence his portrayal in film is spot on not only in activist scenes but also in other scenes that depict him when he not being an activist. The crew went all through this for the sake of naturalism that the film tries to achieve.
Structure
Throughout its runtime the film emphasizes its show, don’t tell approach, and doing so takes great pain to humanize both advocates and follows them around after their working hours depicting their personal lives, what are their influences, where they live, how they entertain themselves, their family strucutre & how accumulation of these small effects ultimately shape their decisions.
This following cut reveals & comments on lots n lots of socio-political-education aspects but leaves it entirely to the viewer to catch them, hence the film evokes sentiments differently for everyone.
The entire film treats the audience as both witness and jury and lays out a sprawling argument for them to ponder over. in order to do so the film follows a highly objective approach because to pin down an invisible entity such as law the film observes the cogs in the machinery when the machine is switched off.
while not leading or being suggestive to the audience because, everyone has an interpretation of the law similarly everyone has their conceptions of its working and effectiveness and thereby giving out an objective view allows for the audience to effectively revaluate and readjust their notions & only through this suggestive reform.
Because an unforced, self developed reform is the one the that sticks and stays long after and, that’s what the film aims at.
