Chaitanya Tamhane: The lone ranger with limitless potential

Chaitanya Tamhane's 'Court' astutely exposed the incomprehensible tenets of the judicial system which uphold justice by relegating it to a corner while pure theatrics is unleashed centre stage, with various uniformed and civilian lead and support characters  enacting a tangential script of little consequence. They are all vicitmised in their own ways, if not to the extent of the accused rebel folk singer, ridiculously charged with abetment to suicide of a manhole worker.

The film is a coveted classic, made immortal by the towering activist Vira Sathidar's unforgettable portrayal of a protest singer-author 'Narayan Kamble', as also Vivek Gomber, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Shirish Pawar, Pradeep Joshi, and Usha Bane in support roles, thanks to Satchit Puranik's phenomenal casting effort and Sambhaji Bhagat’s soul-stirring music.

Not surprisingly, Tamhane got raving reviews for his debut feature 'Court' as also for 'The Disciple' that followed in due course. While most reviewers have underlined the earthy beauty of his reflective cinematic escapades, a few have even called him the 'Satyajit Ray' of contemporary India, their diarrheal appreciation laced with a generous sprinkling of sparkling adjectives. 

Tamhane dexterously employs deadpan humour as his potent weapon which pervades the film throughout, yet many may miss it amid the heaps of sad sequences seeped in everyday reality. But the offbeat voyage gets too indulgent for comfort at times. One frame shows an act from a Marathi play in its entirety. Now, we can understand the virtues of a roving camera and lengthy frames juxtaposed with the lingering essence of the subject matter, but Tamhane should check the monotony of his avante-garde depictions, else it runs the risk of becoming predicatble, which only proves self-defeating. 

Tamhane's 'Disciple' is a whimsical take on a delightfully introspective theme that refuses to take off and deserves a court-martial to seperate the chalk from the cheese. The gloss of his product can't condone the lackadaisical and lazy effort, basking in the glory of its maker's offbeat stature.

The film had so much to go for it - a competent singer-actor (hard to find), a purposeful spoof on the reality TV template organically etched to the protagonist's tale of all trials and no triumphs, and a few enduring frames of everyday conversations that convey more than the gaudy moments that Tamhane chooses to underline with hubristic authority at times, repeating the pet ploy of his debut feature.    

On the face of it, Tamhane narrates the melancholic saga of a classical vocalist but ends up employing the pet motifs of the pseudo avant-garde arsenal to no avail: 'item numbers' rooted in mindless shock value that inevitably disturb the algebra and geometry of the theme. To convey the sexual frustration born out of clumsy infatuation, given all time and attention devoted to a cultivated loyalty to his Guru, the protagonist is shown masturbating on what seems like a staple diet of visual porn.

No quarrel with that but why devote two frames to the solo sport when the point had been put forth decisively at first go. Further, for a guy who is definitively reticent and inward-looking, emptying his glass of lime juice on a caustic music critic in true-blue Bollywood style looks ridiculously out of place. 

And then, we also have the concluding frame of a beggar rendering a folk tune in a moving train (over-chewed in cinema) which many reviewers can't stop raving about  (breathtakingly compelling, delightfully open-ended, surreally immersive, poignantly meditative et al)

Thankfully, Sumitra Bhave's voice-over is a redeeming feature of this over-indulgent movie. If Tamhane truly cares for the given subject matter, we would urge him to make a biopic on the maverick Kumar Gandharva who exposed musical purists and modernists in the same breath, as also the high and mighty experts who make a living speaking and writing about music. Rich cinematic material there, befitting Tamhane's intrinsic talent, and a beckon of inspiration for aspirants who wish to walk the path that 'Disciple' claims to tread.  

The inherently earthy, sermon-free, pathos-rich, and humour-strewn drama of seemingly disparate but seamlessly coalesced frames of 'Court' is a cinematic odyssey of few parallels, a coveted benchmark that even Tamhane could not match in his next, which is no doubt highly introspective and even profound in many respects, but not in the same league as 'Court'. Keenly await Tamhane's next!

Going by the rich accolades and the litany of over-obliging reviews, Tamhane is hot property in the offbeat cicrcuit; a merchant of Venice, courtesy the 2020 competition entry. We hope he looks beyond both the superficiality and superflousness of the overzealous adulation that has come his way in a huge bumper draw, and protects the cocoon of his sheer brillance that pervades his feature films in good measure. We hope he doesn't act like an extra-terrestrial entity, wholly inaccessible to earnest cinegoers, and open only for adulatory conversations with the members of the fourth estate, which is typical of film folks who make their mark in the performing arts. 

A good start would be a closer, more sincere look at Satyajit Ray's body of work, beyond the Apu trilogy, as also the delightful accessibility the great man allowed eveyone - whether celebrities, critics, or commoners.