{"id":22435,"date":"2020-09-04T23:30:28","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T14:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2020\/sep\/04\/the-disciple-review-venice-film-festival"},"modified":"2021-05-01T18:47:44","modified_gmt":"2021-05-01T09:47:44","slug":"the-disciple-review-indian-classical-musician-sings-a-lonely-tune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=22435","title":{"rendered":"The Disciple review \u2013 Indian classical musician sings a lonely tune"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Years of adherence to stringent rules leave a performer at odds with modern society in this melancholy film from Chaitanya Tamhane, India\u2019s first Venice competitor for two decades<\/p>\n<p>Chaitanya Tamhane\u2019s The Disciple comes boldly billed as the first Indian film to play in Venice competition since Mira Nair\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2002\/jan\/04\/culture.peterbradshaw1\">Monsoon Wedding<\/a> won the Golden Lion in 2001, just before the Twin Towers fell. That\u2019s a long time for a nation\u2019s film-makers to sit on the sidelines, left out in the cold \u2013 assuming they ever saw it that way. Possibly they did not. The Disciple, for one, is about the virtues and pitfalls of steering one\u2019s own course. Its hero is embarked on a long, lonely quest. The bright lights and red carpets hold little attraction for him.<\/p>\n<p>You don\u2019t have to be familiar with the intricacies of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hindustani_classical_music\">Hindustani music<\/a> to appreciate Tamhane\u2019s heartfelt, melancholy drama although I\u2019d hazard a guess that it helps. That\u2019s because its protagonist, Sharad Nerulkar (Aditya Modak), is steeped in its traditions, living and breathing its phrasing, picking his way through an apprenticeship that\u2019s been known to last a lifetime. He longs to prove himself as an Indian classical vocalist but can\u2019t meet the bills or pay the rent. His mother despairs of him ever settling down with a wife. \u201cI do nothing but practise,\u201d he laments.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2020\/sep\/04\/the-disciple-review-venice-film-festival\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Years of adherence to stringent rules leave a performer at odds with modern society in this melancholy film from Chaitanya Tamhane, India\u2019s first Venice competitor for two decadesChaitanya Tamhane\u2019s The Disciple comes boldly billed as the first Indian &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1548,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1635,71,508,678,69,62,425,61,1667,852,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-classical-music","category-culture","category-drama-films","category-festivals","category-film","category-india","category-music","category-south-and-central-asia","category-venice-film-festival","category-world-cinema","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1548"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22435"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31649,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22435\/revisions\/31649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}