There is a different feeling after seeing the movie- Court. It is not the usual & spontaneous liking that one has after one watches typical Bollywood or Marathi films. This movie goes in to the system slowly & remains there for a longer time. That is exactly the success of the movie. You just can't forget the movie when you come out of the cinema hall.
I think the movie has come 5-10 years earlier than it should actually have. Indian audience is not used to such kind of movie experiences. We want everything to be served on the platter. We are very casual in our approach when it comes to watching films. We do not want to think before, during & after watching a movie. We are a spoilt audience. Our expectations from a movie are that it should give us a wholesome entertainment. It should be a complete package of romance, comedy, violence, drama, songs & dance. A movie that has all this masala is a successful movie! Another added parameter these days is the box office success. A movie is judged by how it fares at the BO-which I think is really unfair for various reasons.
I have no grudges against all this. But when a movie like 'Court' comes in the middle of all this, the audience is caught unaware. The story is very short & has been presented without much of drama in a very flat way- without any histrionics. There is a tension but not of the usual masala film type.
The movie as is clear from the title is about the state of the judiciary in our country. But there are no clichés & stereotypes here. It is not as if the judge is shown to be susceptible to manipulation- money wise or through political pressures. The deliberations & arguments in the court go about so plainly & routinely! There are no theatrics or over the top scenes. And yet the story unfolds in the way it does.
Despite the fact that there have so many reviews & so much discussions happening on social network sites, I think people either do not read all this & just go to see the film or even if they do read, they remain firm with their own expectations. But the movie demands something else. It raises the bar so much & so suddenly that many people are unable to catch up with it. We had a very live example of all this. After the movie, when we left the theatre & came on the main road, a young man in his mid twenties came & said-"Are you returning after seeing Court?" We said yes. With a shake of his head, he said-
" मग गेले का पैसे वाया ? (Don't you think your money was wasted?) I don't understand why they make such movies. What did they want to show?" And he went away, continuing to shake his head & making angry gestures with his hands.
I think the movie has come 5-10 years earlier than it should actually have. Indian audience is not used to such kind of movie experiences. We want everything to be served on the platter. We are very casual in our approach when it comes to watching films. We do not want to think before, during & after watching a movie. We are a spoilt audience. Our expectations from a movie are that it should give us a wholesome entertainment. It should be a complete package of romance, comedy, violence, drama, songs & dance. A movie that has all this masala is a successful movie! Another added parameter these days is the box office success. A movie is judged by how it fares at the BO-which I think is really unfair for various reasons.
I have no grudges against all this. But when a movie like 'Court' comes in the middle of all this, the audience is caught unaware. The story is very short & has been presented without much of drama in a very flat way- without any histrionics. There is a tension but not of the usual masala film type.
The movie as is clear from the title is about the state of the judiciary in our country. But there are no clichés & stereotypes here. It is not as if the judge is shown to be susceptible to manipulation- money wise or through political pressures. The deliberations & arguments in the court go about so plainly & routinely! There are no theatrics or over the top scenes. And yet the story unfolds in the way it does.
Despite the fact that there have so many reviews & so much discussions happening on social network sites, I think people either do not read all this & just go to see the film or even if they do read, they remain firm with their own expectations. But the movie demands something else. It raises the bar so much & so suddenly that many people are unable to catch up with it. We had a very live example of all this. After the movie, when we left the theatre & came on the main road, a young man in his mid twenties came & said-"Are you returning after seeing Court?" We said yes. With a shake of his head, he said-
" मग गेले का पैसे वाया ? (Don't you think your money was wasted?) I don't understand why they make such movies. What did they want to show?" And he went away, continuing to shake his head & making angry gestures with his hands.
I am no technical expert. But still a few things in the movie stand out & I have never seen them before. One of them is the camera angles & the way in which the film has been shot. I was absolutely amazed by the unconventional approach of the director. Not just about the slow pace, but also the way in which what he has done is he has just kept camera in one particular place & shot the scene. That has created a big impact. Especially in the scene when Vinayak Pawar's wife is being questioned. The camera is just constantly there on her. Even if both the lawyers ask her questions, they are out of frame; you only hear their questions. One can now understand the plight of this poor, uneducated lady who has lost her husband and now is forced in to this unfamiliar & tense situation of answering all sorts of questions in the court! Conventionally, the camera would have moved from the wife, to the prosecutor to the wife to defence lawyer..The continuity of shots (I don't know if this is a right technical phrase) adds to the drama but very subtly.
There is another scene in which actual violence is happening. The defence lawyer comes out of hotel & is walking on the footpath. He goes out of the frame & is followed by two people from that Goymari community. They too move out & they probably blacken his face. The camera doesn't move. The violence is not shown to the audience but we know of it through the dialogues that too appear distant. What the camera captures instead is the watchman or doorkeeper of the hotel intentionally or unintentionally goes inside the hotel when the ruckus is happening just nearby! This is amazing! And what the defence lawyer goes through is shown to us through his sobs & through the shirtless back when he is sitting in the dark,! Most unusual & yet most meaningful picturization!
It would require a great deal of conviction & courage for a director to shoot the sequence when the court is declared closed for vacations & when you see the empty court space & how gradually the lights go off & there is complete darkness! The last scene of slap in fact raises the movie to a different level altogether. It leaves up to the audience how it could interpret the end of the movie.
There is another scene in which actual violence is happening. The defence lawyer comes out of hotel & is walking on the footpath. He goes out of the frame & is followed by two people from that Goymari community. They too move out & they probably blacken his face. The camera doesn't move. The violence is not shown to the audience but we know of it through the dialogues that too appear distant. What the camera captures instead is the watchman or doorkeeper of the hotel intentionally or unintentionally goes inside the hotel when the ruckus is happening just nearby! This is amazing! And what the defence lawyer goes through is shown to us through his sobs & through the shirtless back when he is sitting in the dark,! Most unusual & yet most meaningful picturization!
It would require a great deal of conviction & courage for a director to shoot the sequence when the court is declared closed for vacations & when you see the empty court space & how gradually the lights go off & there is complete darkness! The last scene of slap in fact raises the movie to a different level altogether. It leaves up to the audience how it could interpret the end of the movie.
There are lot of views & counter views on whether it was necessary to show what the defence lawyer, the prosecutor & the Judge do in their personal lives. Because that has an impact on their process of thinking & even action for the case they are dealing. Everybody leads two lives-one is professional & the other personal. We think they are different compartments. But actually they are not! One tends to react & act based on the mindset one has evolved over a period of time. So the personal lives of these protagonists gives us an idea of how restricted their world is (especially of the public prosecutor & also of the Judge.)
Apart from Geetanjali Kulkarni, there are no recognized actors in the movie. And Geetanjali Kulkarni has really done well to put across the boring court procedures & her statements in a tone that would actually de-glamourize the court proceedings that we have known through many films.
The absurdity of the proceedings & the delay in the delivery of justice that is depicted in the movie is so prophetic! What with the numerous judgements that we have come to know of recently. That is the appeal of the movie.
Going beyond, I think the movie has a universal appeal as well- the voice of the victim or a common gets so muted in front of the System that moves ever so slowly, if at all! This is timeless & can be appreciated in any part of the world. So I think Chaitanya Tamhane, the director, has made a classic.
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