Have a look at all the headlines about this film. Many acclaimed critics have seen this as per their intrinsic constitution. They all are right, yet they all wouldn't be complete, that is the power of subtlety.

Ever since I came to know that Chaitanya Tamhane was working on his next project, I was eagerly waiting for it. The subject of Hindustani Classical music was an added bonus, and on release, it met all the hype and yet had a bit more to offer.

This is Chaitanya's second film. After the success of the first film Court, the pressure to outperform must have been enormous. He showed that he is made of a special fabric altogether and holds ample capacity to sustain this pressure and produce another gem, arguably an even better film than Court.

Chaitanya Tamhane sticks to his title wholeheartedly. He was deeply committed to court as a system in his first movie of the same name. His steady camera was an unbiased, firm, nonchalant observer of a monotonous creeping pace of judicial proceedings. In the disciple, he takes on a bigger challenge. In his second feature, he still shows the same commitment to the title. He presents a tale of a disciple from the limited and focussed perspective of him being one. There aren't a lot of details about his personal life, or technicalities of the music he pursues. There is a laser-sharp focus on him being a disciple. From an observational study of a non-living entity like the judiciary, his second venture moves on to a living human being and the specific role he plays.

I just wonder if the title of the film should have been A Disciple, rather than being The Disciple. There is nothing exceptionally special about Sharad Nerulkar. He has given his everything to classical singing. He has let go of all other pleasures on road to masting the art form. Yet, he has his limitations. Coming to terms with one's own limitations is a battle fought alone. If your limitations fall in the realm of mediocrity, then this battle is tiring and disheartening. There is no one on the sidelines to cheer you up. The crowd is already with those who have risen above the rest and are fighting to go that extra edge where no one has gone before. But what of the ambitions of the commonfolk? A lot of them have already locked away a side of their personality after a few discouraging remarks from folks offering unsolicited advice. What of those who have the unrelenting perseverance to go on despite their limitations? Popular wisdom has nothing to offer on this, for such people are destined to walk alone silently on their personal journey. When Sharad laments about not being able to think of the right emotion to put in his singing, not even his Guru can help him.

Indian classical music has always venerated teachers of the art. This veneration and devotion is at times at par with worship or even beyond if that is possible. I think this movie would be one of the first ones to highlight even the finest and most talented Gurus are human beings. There is a scene where a classical music collector, Joshi, shares opinions, thoughts and rumours about revered musicians of the erstwhile era. Sharad's reaction is evident in the film's trailer. Joshi has his own perspective to look at those people without thinking about them beyond someone who renders music, which is almost like thinking about them as a machinist producing some output. This casual indifference to the process is a bit too much to handle for Sharad or even for us considering the point in which the scene meets us, for which the credit goes to Chaitanya.

Of all the various reasons why Chaitanya should be given credit for, these oft-overlooked bits make the movie a little more than being just acclaimed. I loved his wide-angle shots and patient camera work. He takes his time with the scene. The style takes time to grow on you. It is unhurried to the point of becoming meditative. There is no pomp or flair here. The slice-of-life style filmmaking continues from his Court days. This self-assured pacing of keeping the audience in the scene slightly beyond their comfort zone makes Chaitanya's work nothing short of an evocative painting. You see a modern art frame and the voids are filled by your interpretation. Those come alive with your personalities and outlooks and hence they say beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. Steady and long takes do that to your psyche. Just after the narrative puts in a comma as the action subsides in a frame, your mind starts extrapolating and imagining beyond that frame taking it as a prompt for further thought. That is likely the reason for so many different headlines trying to ring-fence certain aspects of the film. There are people praising the camera work, people praising the editing, some talk about the acting or plot and yet some go on a totally different tangent. The film gives that space to the audience to experience, process and interpret the scenes in their own way, and that is the success of this film.

Chaitanya did not go for established actors for this. He wanted established musicians to portray a slice of their life in the context of the film. Aditya Modak is a Hindustani classical vocalist who debuted as Sharad Nerulkar (amusing to say debuts, as I am not sure if he is pursuing an acting career as such). His Guru played by Dr Arun David is a foremost disciple of the renowned classical vocalist Kishori Amonkar (who might be an inspiration for Mai, but don't quote me on this). The character Mai, who makes a profound impact only with her voice and not shown on the screen. The voice is given by the distinguished director Sumitra Bhave, who just recently passed away. This casting is exactly opposite to another successful work in the Hindustani classical musical context, Bandish Bandits, where we see debutant actors learning and rendering classical music for the camera. That is a distinctive difference between commercial and arthouse, but more on that a bit later.

For non-veteran actors, both Aditya and his Guruji have noteworthy screen presence. Sharad's frustration and his anger on his own inability to overcome his limitations despite sincere efforts are very well presented by Aditya Modak. There is casual passing footage given to the current talent hunt shows and the fickle popularity owing to short-lived celebrities status. Aditya's reactions towards these shows hint at both condemnation and jealousy. Again, Chaitanya shows restraint in limiting the scope for this subject as it goes slightly tangential to his main theme. Other side actors who come for few scenes feel believable and natural. The 10+ months spent in casting were spot on.

Subtlety and exposition are two ends of the scale. No points for guessing which is the favourite of the producers and marketing guys. For commercial equations it is imperative that you want to know your target audience, you want to know exactly how the film should make you feel, where this is to be placed, which genres it is going for. With subtle films, such equations do not work. If you can not pinpoint the audience reaction on a scene (to the point of putting a fake laugher track if needed) there is probably little for the producers to invest in. I suspect that is how the gulf between the mainstream forms of art and indie arthouse projects is formed. From the pure drama and expressions point of view, movies like Court and The Disciple are brilliant but they fail to garner the required audience appeal. Probably because the audience today does not want the art to confront or question them. They want art to precisely tell them what they should feel at what time and how much. Evocative background music and explosive dialogues are there to nudge the audience's mind exactly in the required direction.

I had read somewhere that art and audience work in tandem. Both need to confront and challenge each other to elevate mutually. The widening gulf between the supposed arthouse (and therefore non-mainstream) and the populist mainstream is a cause of concern.

I hope the success of The Disciple or even the mouth publicity of the film helps narrow down this gap and we are more willing to be tested by films rather than being pacified.

"Everything she said in those interviews must be full of self-righteous bullshit."

It can take half a lifetime to find your own path in this world. Embrace that.