An enthralling courtroom drama from India. Set in Mumbai, the film is about a 65 year old folk singer and social activist accused of inciting a suicide after one of his songs performed in a street festival apparently cause a sewerage worker to kill himself. The singer denies the charge, and in fact it is not even clear whether this was a suicide or an accident. A long trial, full of arcane procedures and where the activist has all the cards stacked against him, ensues.
Interestingly, all of the characters in the trial come from different classes. The judge, a particularly distasteful individual, comes from the highest class milieu (we get this only from a coda at the end), the defending lawyer comes from what in India would be an upper middle class (he clearly has taken this case for idealistic reasons, not monetary gain), the female prosecutor from a lower middle class, and the folk singer himself belongs clearly to the working class. On the bottom of the social ladder are the dead janitor and his widow, which are almost certainly illiterate.
Perhaps one of the few flaws in the movie is that we did not get to know enough of the accused. He has a life long history of social protest and radical activism, but is not clear in the movie, at least to a non Indian, what are the views he has held that the Government finds so offensive. Is he an advocate of Dalit rights? Of regional separatism? (the prosecutor accuses him at one point of endangering India's integrity). The movie focuses more on the other characters in the trial (we also see part of their daily life) than in the singer.
Interestingly, all of the characters in the trial come from different classes. The judge, a particularly distasteful individual, comes from the highest class milieu (we get this only from a coda at the end), the defending lawyer comes from what in India would be an upper middle class (he clearly has taken this case for idealistic reasons, not monetary gain), the female prosecutor from a lower middle class, and the folk singer himself belongs clearly to the working class. On the bottom of the social ladder are the dead janitor and his widow, which are almost certainly illiterate.
Perhaps one of the few flaws in the movie is that we did not get to know enough of the accused. He has a life long history of social protest and radical activism, but is not clear in the movie, at least to a non Indian, what are the views he has held that the Government finds so offensive. Is he an advocate of Dalit rights? Of regional separatism? (the prosecutor accuses him at one point of endangering India's integrity). The movie focuses more on the other characters in the trial (we also see part of their daily life) than in the singer.