Music on his mind

Before 2014, Chaitanya Tamhane was just another aspiring filmmaker. And then came Court, which not only made the ‘best-of-the-year’ lists but even the ‘best-of-the-decade’ ones. After winning two awards at the Venice Film Festival, including best film in the Orizzonti section, Court became that rare directorial debut to win the nation’s highest cinematic honour: the National Award for Best Film. Tamhane was 27 at that time.

After six years, during which he produced an animated short and spent two years with Oscar-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron, courtesy the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, Tamhane is ready with his second film, The Disciple. It’s the first Indian film since Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding (2001) to be in the Venice Film Festival’s main competition. The Marathi film will also screen at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

Cuaron’s influence on the film is “immense”, says Tamhane. In addition to sharing feedback on script, Cuaron had Oscar-winning cinematographer Emman­uel Lubezki recommend a lensman, Poland’s Michal Sobocinski, and encouraged Tamhane to edit the film on his own. “He has gone beyond the programme,” says Tamhane, who got to see Cuaron work on his acclaimed film Roma in Mexico. “He is still helping me strategise the film’s journey.”

While Court offered an authentic, comprehensive experience of a trial through the eyes of the four people part of it, The Disciple is set in the world of Hindustani classical music and, as the title hints, looks at the guru-shishya tradition. Tamhane didn’t grow up on classical music but, in his early 20s, he began to note the “hierarchical notions, extreme reverence and the things you are expected to do” which have been intrinsic to the practice. It was enough to compel him to abandon another script and visit Kolkata, Pune and Delhi, cities with a vibrant musical tradition, for research. His interview subjects include The Music Room author Namita Gokhale and tabla artist Aneesh Pradhan, who is also credited with music design. Tamhane cast musicians for the key parts. Vivek Gomber, producer of Court, stepped up again to fund.

With the lack of familiar faces in the cast and the subject itself, Tamhane knows the film will be “even more difficult” to market. As he shines on the international film festival circuit, he admits his family and friends are eager to see him “make that commercial film”. Tamhane, though, doesn’t want to give in to the herd mentality. When reminded that Cuaron has shuttled between the two worlds adeptly as evident by Children of Men and Gravity, the 33-year-old says the Hollywood and Bollywood commercial ecosystems cannot be compared. Instead, he seeks inspiration from Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan and the late Abbas Kiarostami, “who work[ed] within their resources” to tell stories “which rang true to their context and had this beautiful elegance and simplicity”. Bollywood can wait.

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