Court JDiff review: Human rights are a luxury few in India can afford in this gripping debut feature

Just when you imagined the courtroom drama had no place left to go, along comes Chaitanya Tamhane's fiendishly clever debut feature. Narayan Kamble (Sathidar) is a 65-year-old social activist and singer who is part of a troupe that performs around Mumbai's less salubrious neighbourhoods. When he is arrested for inciting a sewage worker to kill himself – supposedly after listening to one of Kamble's songs – defender Vinay Vora (Gomber) takes on the patently ludicrous case. But between corrupt police officials, inherited Victorian laws, a stickler of a judge (Joshi), and dogged public prosecutor Nutan (Geetanjali Kulkarni), the case is not an easy one.

Cinematographer Mrinal Desai maintains an appropriately static gaze and always lingers a beat longer than most cameras would dare, a strategy that proves revelatory in every sense. A superficially freewheeling plot jumps between the complex principal characters: Nutan is a hardworking mum-of-two who takes her family to immigrant-bashing pantomimes; Vinay enjoys imported cheese and jazz between social causes; the seemingly patient judge's capacity for knee-jerk cruelty is revealed in a small, disturbing final gesture. Slowly, Court coalesces into a powerful chronicle of gaping social inequalities and judicial inadequacies. Human rights soon look like Nutan's cheeses: a luxury that only the privileged can afford.