Court

The Mumbai police desperately want folk singer Narayan Kamble behind bars. After he is arrested onstage at a public performance, Kamble is surprised to learn that he is being charged with abetment of suicide: a sewage worker allegedly heard his poetry shortly before being found dead. What is an obviously absurd accusation, however, is taken quite seriously by the municipal authorities. Kamble’s lawyer, a handsome and well-to-do champion of civil rights—and a veteran of legal battles spawned by similarly fabricated allegations—knows what it takes to win the case and coolly engages with a prosecution that relies largely on stock witnesses and archaic laws in building arguments. As Kamble’s trial unfolds, the film weaves in and out of the courtroom, following both attorneys and the presiding judge into more personal moments: frustrating meals with parents, trips to the grocery store, outings with children. Through these quotidian snippets–always patiently and gorgeously recorded—Court becomes as much an examination of contemporary Indian life as it is of a flawed justice system, raising questions about social and economic structures while vividly painting the individuals who must navigate them. —Julia Nelson