the disciple movie review guardian

Review: ‘The Disciple’ is already one of the year’s best movies. Does Netflix know — or care?

Three musicians with their instruments on a stage face a cross-legged crowd.

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Early in “The Disciple,” a brilliantly composed, rigorously intelligent new movie from the Indian writer-director Chaitanya Tamhane, a young man named Sharad (Aditya Modak) sits at a table offering rare musical treasures for sale. No one takes much interest or notice. Sifting idly through the CDs on display, a potential customer says he’s never heard of any of these artists, to which Sharad replies with a true believer’s conviction: “Yes, sir, but they are as good as the famous names.” You can sense him holding back: What he’d probably like to say is that they’re possibly better than the famous names, that their lack of widespread recognition may in fact have something to do with the exceptional quality of their work.

That’s an assumption rooted in familiar and endlessly fractious debates between art and commerce; elitism and Philistinism; an eclectic, connoisseurial sensibility and an incurious, consumerist one. It’s to Tamhane’s credit that while he clearly shares his protagonist’s belief in the power of art, especially art that others might dub pretentious or obscure, he is too much of a realist to let that belief pass by entirely unchallenged. This thoughtful, multilayered and vividly engrossing movie, a portrait of the artist as a young Mumbai musician, is also a remarkably clear-eyed record of personal frustration, bitterness and failure. “The Disciple” may strike a blow for art in a world dominated by industry, but it also forgoes the easy superiority and self-congratulation that can ensnare many artists (and, to be sure, more than a few critics).

And now, following its unceremonious April 30 release by Netflix, which acquired it in January, the film finds itself broadsided by an irony that Sharad might appreciate. “The Disciple,” a movie you may not have heard of until now, also happens to be one of the finest movies in this still-young year. This is hardly a rare or surprising occurrence: Some of the most interesting films cycle through theaters and streaming-service menus every year without attracting much notice. Still, given a mainstream film culture that treats art with reflexive hostility — witness the performative indifference and faux-populist scorn that greeted this year’s Oscar nominees — it’s fair to ask what chance a smart, subtly layered picture like “The Disciple” has of finding the audience it deserves.

An even sadder question: What chance does “The Disciple” have when its own distributor barely seems aware of its existence? When the film dropped on Netflix last week, it did so with zero advance word or publicity, bringing to mind the streaming giant’s similarly hot-potato treatment of other recent acclaimed titles from overseas, like the BAFTA-winning English drama “Rocks” and the Oscar-shortlisted Taiwanese melodrama “A Sun.” The lack of fanfare seems especially galling in the case of “The Disciple,” one of the best-received entries at last year’s Venice, Toronto and New York film festivals (and the winner of a screenplay prize at Venice). A widely lauded sophomore effort from a major new talent should have been unveiled with singular care and attention. Instead, “The Disciple” was treated as just another streaming-menu thumbnail, one more negligible tile in Netflix’s ever-expanding global content mosaic.

Since then, “The Disciple’s” publicity apparatus appears to have kicked in, possibly in response to the indignant social-media outcry from journalists. I don’t mean to belabor my indignation; I generally review movies, not release strategies. But Netflix’s shoddy treatment of “The Disciple” — and its dispiriting history of marginalizing titles from abroad that are invariably marginalized to begin with — can’t really be divorced from what the movie is about: the vulnerability of so much great art and the degree to which art survives, sometimes just barely, through the devotion of a passionate few.

A man holding an instrument sits cross-legged

The protagonist of “The Disciple” has passion to burn. Sharad, whom we first meet as a 24-year-old in 2006, is an aspiring scholar and performer of Hindustani, or northern Indian, classical music, an art form that calls forth a near-religious devotion from its adherents. (The movie’s title is no accident.) Sharad lives in near isolation with his grandmother (Neela Khedkar) in Mumbai, avoiding phone calls from his mother, who disapproves of his calling. Like his longtime guru, or Guruji (Arun Dravid), he spends nearly every waking moment trying to master his art, which demands technical skill, improvisatory brilliance and something more: a daunting, possibly unattainable degree of spiritual and philosophical purity.

“It cannot be learnt so easily. Even 10 lifetimes are not enough.” Those are the words of the late Maai (voiced by Sumitra Bhave), a legendary guru whose recorded lectures Sharad often listens to while riding his motorcycle through Mumbai in calmer, quieter glimpses than we’re used to seeing of this famously bustling city. Those recordings were passed down to him by his late father (Kiran Yadnyopavit), who we occasionally see in warmly tinted flashbacks instilling in his young son a love for this extraordinary and extraordinarily demanding music.

Notably, those demands fall heavily on the audience as well as the artist. The viewer who, like me, approaches “The Disciple” with zero knowledge of Hindustani music may still be hard-pressed by movie’s end to explain the workings of a raga (the musical framework within which singers have the freedom to improvise) or to detect the subtleties of phrasing and intonation that might distinguish a good performance from a bad one. But thanks to the extraordinary concentration of the filmmaking — to say nothing of the hypnotic ambiance of the tanpura and the melodic rise and fall of the singers’ voices — one’s ignorance matters less than might be expected. As for the good and the bad: Even the untrained ear will soon grasp that, within this highly competitive world, Sharad is an erratic talent at best. Whether he’s training with Guruji, who’s quick to correct his every vocal misstep, or being ejected early from a young talent competition, he thoroughly disproves the optimistic mantra that hard work and a little luck are all it takes.

At about the halfway mark, “The Disciple” flashes forward several years to find an older, paunchier, more cynical Sharad still plugging away, now balancing equally unfulfilling careers as a music teacher and occasional performer. It’s here that the movie’s portrait of the music scene takes on ever sharper, more satirical dimensions. At one point, Sharad has an ill-advised sitdown with a veteran music critic (played with a dead-on mix of erudition and snark by Prasad Vanarse), in a scene whose beautifully modulated emotional tension shows Tamhane’s writing and direction at their fine-grained best.

Two men sit in the rear seat of a vehicle.

Modak, in a quietly magnetic screen debut, gradually brings Sharad into focus. Some of his most revealing moments are essentially wordless: You register his contempt and envy when a younger singer (Kristy Banerjee) becomes a reality-TV sensation and also his barely contained fury at the unflattering comments on his YouTube videos. Among other things, “The Disciple” is a decades-spanning chronicle of an entertainment industry in constant technological flux, which means it’s fascinated by the ephemeral as well as the eternal. The chunky-looking recording equipment Sharad uses to transfer old cassettes may be outdated ’80s technology, but it is also a means of preserving and engaging with a timeless art form.

Such complexities abound in “The Disciple,” which works as both an unusually penetrating character study and an expansive social panorama. As in Tamhane’s splendid 2014 debut feature, “Court” (which can be streamed for free on Kanopy ), nearly every scene consists of a widescreen establishing shot that keeps the characters at a bit of a distance but brings us deep into their world, with its intimate domestic spaces and crowded music halls. It also ensures that the protagonist never quite becomes the hero of his story. Sharad may occupy the center of these capacious frames (meticulously composed by the Polish cinematographer Michal Soboci´nski), but at almost every moment he is surrounded, challenged and even eclipsed by those around him. His aspirations remain heartbreakingly close to the surface, but his solipsism is kept firmly at bay.

Tamhane’s use of visual distance has its antecedents in a staggeringly rich history of art-cinema realism, including the work of his late, great countryman Satyajit Ray. But if you’re reminded of more recent work, namely Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma,” you’re on to something: Tamhane was mentored by Cuarón and worked on the set of “Roma,” and Cuarón in turn provided guidance during this movie’s production and is credited as an executive producer.

Like “The Disciple,” “Roma” tells an exquisitely observed personal story whose aesthetic wonders require a big screen for maximum impact. Unlike “The Disciple,” “Roma” was at least treated by Netflix as more than an afterthought thanks to Cuarón’s imprimatur and the movie’s awards potential. Tamhane’s film doesn’t need awards to prove its worth. It just needs a distributor that gives a damn.

‘The Disciple’

(In Bengali, English, Hindi and Marathi with English subtitles) (Not rated) Running time: 2 hours, 8 minutes Playing: On Netflix

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Sometimes we love art so much that we forget it does not have to love us back. Writer/director Chaitanya Tamhane ’s “The Disciple” reminds us of this by telling the story of Sharad ( Aditya Modak ), who has been looking past such a bittersweet truth his whole life. In his pursuit of becoming a master vocalist in Indian classical music, his happiness has become muted . And it does not matter how much he studies his idols, or practices at night, pushing himself through one mistake after another. There is something more to music than just technique, and time. “The Disciple,” in its own powerful way, is about an avid practicer who would give anything for this dream, but does not have “it.”

Sharad has wanted this since he was a boy. His father trained him extensively, made him knowledgeable beyond his years about the music and its theory, and imparted Sharad with a desperation to be great. Currently, he lives with his grandma, and by day he earns minimal pay converting old classical recordings into new audio formats, archiving music that people hardly listen to anymore, and that he loves. By night, he bikes around Mumbai listening to bootleg teaching tapes from a master named Maai, whose singing advice includes finding purity, perspective, and inner truth. These scenes are shot in dreamlike slow motion, to match the droning of the tanpura, an instrument meant to be support a voice. And these sequences often run for over a minute, forcing the viewer to slow down themselves. Such flourishes add a substantial deal to the story’s approach of getting you inside Sharad's head.

Tamhane has a brilliant approach to involving the viewer into the film’s many musical sequences, whether one has listened to Indian classical music before or not. At first it’s about setting the stage: before any music is even heard, Tamhane’s framing is already vibrating with people moving about in their chairs, fanning themselves, milling about in small but cumulative ways. (It’s not uncommon during the whole movie for people in the background to walk in and out of frame at meticulous times.) But when it comes to the performance, Tamhane commands your attention not by telling us which musician to look at, but to notice everyone’s expressions. It’s a film with music that's all about faces, namely that of performers, a recognization of how musicians can have their own silent monologues while their hands focus on their instruments. Long before Tamhane’s camera gently pushes into Sharad’s gaze, its expressions going from supportive, humbled, jealous, and insecure, back to focus on his tanpura, and back again, we know that we should be paying attention to him even more than the man warbling his throat at the center of the frame with impeccable breath control and microtonal confidence, his Guruji.

“The Disciple” is a great example of when filmmaking and acting styles complement each other, and it’s that bond that feels to be a significant part of what makes Tamhane’s film so special, so resonant. On the outside, Modak goes through distinct physical transformation in the film, complementing Tamhane’s decades-spanning narrative than then goes back and forth at a blink. But the inside work is even more compelling: Modak creates an emotional desperation that is as organic as Tamhane’s static camera, the actor repressing a tremendous deal of emotions behind polite smiles and forceful gulps of self-loathing with each failure. Being a good musician requires a certain presence in the moment; the same goes for acting. Modak’s incredible performance, especially when he’s on stage or practicing alone, transcends those two ideas, and achieves the type of purity that Sharad yearns for.

Looking into Sharad’s progressively beat-down eyes, I thought of another weary movie musician who struggled with the classics: Llewyn Davis. That character, from the Coen brothers masterpiece “ Inside Llewyn Davis ,” also loved the music that no one wanted to hear any more, and became isolated in wanting to preach its greatness. But “The Disciple” is even bleaker than “Inside Llewyn Davis,” as at least Oscar Isaac ’s character harnessed the essential feeling behind music—the difference between simply repeating what has been heard before, the "it." Sharad cannot find that feeling despite being told to pursue it by those he looks up to, and Tamhane obfuscates the notion even more by wondering if feeling really matters at all. Especially when it comes to the classics, which Tamhane posits as a cause more lost than Llewyn’s friend's cat.

“The Disciple” depicts a full lifetime of being someone like Sharad, by jumping to his different memories as a kid, a 24-year-old entering competitions, and later a man in his thirties. It is a non-fussy approach: when things get slightly better for Sharad's career, there is no grandiose improvement montage that shows his skills, but rather an indication of how his insistence might have finally pushed him to the next level. (A photoshoot in the future adds a mustache, a bunch of belly weight, and a photographer reminding him that he should smile.) There is another perceptive scene in the film in which Sharad encounters a critic who challenges the legacy of all the music he reveres; it’s all the more wrenching to be used as a flashback, as if it were a course-altering conversation he’s tried for decades to deny. But it’s the personal details that, at least on first viewing of “The Disciple,” feel too sketched out by Tamhane's non-chronological editing. With the character study pushing past two hours with its solemn tone, the leaps register as abrupt and slightly cold to the emotional growth it wonders about earlier in the film during his times of arrested development, or when he fails to have a healthy romantic relationship.

Here is a film that you should know before going in is particularly sad, and yet that is what makes it so meaningful. The movie shares Sharad’s passion for Indian classical music, dedicating some long and sprawling sequences to displaying it and talking about it, but "The Disciple" dares to look at passion as a state of mind with sizable pain. Sharad’s journey of wanting to be like his idols is filled with so many flubs—called out by his master, or sometimes by himself—and each time they're a little punch to the gut, but oh so recognizable. And yet he keeps at it, with a degree of endurance that would usually be triumphant. In the unsentimental reality of Tamhane’s film, it is incredibly devastating, and honest.

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Nick Allen is the former Senior Editor at RogerEbert.com and a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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The Disciple (2021)

128 minutes

Aditya Modak as Sharad

Arun Dravid

Sumitra Bhave

Deepika Bhida Bhagwat

Kiran Yadnyopavit

Prasad Vanarse

Chaitanya Tamhane

Cinematographer

Michal Sobocinski

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'The Disciple' Is Triumphant, Even As It Tells A Story Of Failure

Justin Chang

Aditya Modak plays an aspiring Hindustani classical musician in The Disciple. Netflix hide caption

Aditya Modak plays an aspiring Hindustani classical musician in The Disciple.

Before I saw The Disciple , I knew nothing about Hindustani, or northern Indian, classical music. By the end of the movie, I knew a little bit more, though I'd still be hard-pressed to follow the different intonations that singers bring to their performances, or to explain how a raga works. (That's the musical framework that allows performers to improvise.) Fortunately, no expertise is needed to appreciate The Disciple , which is both a welcome introduction to a kind of music we rarely hear onscreen and a richly layered story of a young man's artistic struggle.

His name is Sharad, and he's played with great depth and emotional subtlety by Aditya Modak. It's 2006, and the 24-year-old Sharad lives in Mumbai with his grandmother, working occasionally but spending most of his time studying his chosen art form. Hindustani classical music doesn't just require impeccable technique and brilliant improvisation. It's an all-consuming discipline, demanding a level of spiritual purity that singers can spend a lifetime trying to achieve.

We learn some of this from the lectures that Sharad listens to as he rides his motorbike at night around Mumbai, in scenes that capture a calmer side of this famously bustling city. We also spend a lot of time watching and listening to him practice. The writer-director Chaitanya Tamhane immerses us in this music, letting us get used to its distinct sounds and rhythms.

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Sharad is completely devoted to his craft, but he's an erratic performer at best. His uninspired singing gets him ejected early from a young artists' competition, and his longtime teacher and guru doesn't hesitate to criticize him during rehearsals, and even during a public performance. The Disciple throws cold water on the notion, much beloved by so many inspirational movies, that hard work and a little luck are all it takes. It's an unsparing portrait of artistic frustration.

About halfway through, the movie leaps ahead to roughly the present day and becomes an almost satirical depiction of the Indian music scene. Sharad is older and a lot more cynical, working as a schoolteacher and trying to keep his performing career afloat. He watches with both contempt and envy as a younger singer becomes an overnight sensation on an American Idol -style reality TV show. And in perhaps the movie's most emotionally lacerating scene, he has an ill-advised sitdown with a veteran music critic who witheringly dismisses Sharad's heroes, including his beloved guru.

We critics of course make convenient movie villains. But what sets The Disciple apart is how fairly it treats all its characters and how scrupulously it refuses to take sides. Tamhane sympathizes with Sharad through all his disappointments, and he clearly shares his belief that his art is worth pursuing and preserving. But he's also too honest a filmmaker to indulge Sharad's self-pity.

Even the director's exquisite visual approach, aided here by the Polish cinematographer Michal Sobocinski, winds up subtly undermining Sharad and putting his struggles in perspective. As in Tamhane's excellent 2014 legal drama, Court , nearly every scene consists of a single uninterrupted take, framed at a careful remove from the characters. We're drawn into the cramped little rooms where Sharad practices, and the large, crowded music halls where he performs. This is Modak's screen debut, and the lack of closeups makes his performance all the more impressive. Even at a distance, and with very few words, he conveys Sharad's bitterness and disillusionment as his life refuses to go as planned.

While The Disciple harks back to classic Indian films like Satyajit Ray 's The Music Room , it also carries stylistic echoes of Alfonso Cuarón 's similarly meditative and gorgeously photographed movie Roma . That's no accident: Tamhane, who's 34, was mentored by Cuarón and worked on the set of Roma . Cuarón in turn provided guidance on The Disciple and is credited as an executive producer. There's something poignant about that, given how much the story focuses on the student-teacher relationship and the way artistic traditions are passed down. The Disciple may tell a story about failure, but it's a triumphant achievement from a gifted film artist.

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The Disciple

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What to Know

The rare film that captures the passion that drives the mastery of creative pursuits, The Disciple reaffirms writer-director Chaitanya Tamhane as an emerging master of his craft.

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Arun Dravid

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Chaitanya Tamhane ’s The Disciple exists at the delicate cross-section between visual and oral tradition, exploring Hindustani Classical music — an eight-hundred-year-old art form — through the ever-changing lens of the modern world. At its center is Sharad Nerulkar, played by first-time actor Aditya Modak , who turns in a restrained and nuanced performance as the film’s eponymous protégé. It’s a story split between three pivotal decades of evolving Indian ephemera as Sharad searches for meaning within the rigorous boundaries of his craft, a form of religious artistry that demands total devotion. Across the film’s 128-minute runtime, Tamhane slowly and meticulously opens the floodgates between the spiritual and physical worlds as technology becomes more intrusive, allowing for a jarring (and at times necessary) cross-pollination of sights, sounds and ideas.

The Marathi and Hindi-language film, executive produced by Alfonso Cuarón , is a political Rubik’s cube akin to Court (2015), Tamhane’s masterful debut. It has the same myriad strengths and the same occasional weaknesses, but what separates The Disciple from its predecessor is Tamhane’s aesthetic approach. On the surface, both films have the same observant quality. They capture their characters at a physical remove, most often in tranquil wide and medium shots that allow us to absorb the spaces they inhabit. Though where Court unpacked the heady rigmarole of Indian judiciary by lingering on procedure, The Disciple swaps out the rote for the ethereal, embodying tenets of Classical music itself, as if in mathematical navigation of some spiritual realm.

The film’s very fabric feels mystical and metaphysical. Its music reverberates, as if off the walls of a holy site. Watching it feels like floating in some unseen, unspoken realm each time Sharad takes a step forward in his search (though we’re soon yanked back to reality with each step back). The plot no doubt facilitates this oscillation, veering between brief moments of musical transcendence, and Sharad’s insecurity about his place in a changing world. The former feels deeply spiritual; the latter, achingly human. For the most part, it follows Sharad’s private lessons in the early/mid-2000s with his esteemed teacher — his Guruji — played by renowned real-world Classical singer Dr. Arun Dravid . The film also briefly flashes back to Sharad’s childhood in the 1980s, shortly before India’s economic liberalization and its opening up to western culture.

The focus of these flashbacks is Sharad’s late father ( Kiran Yadnyopavit ), who pours his devotion to Classical music into books on the subject — specifically, books about his mysterious musical mentor, the late Maai, who also mentored Sharad’s Guruji . As it happens, Sharad’s father was also in possession of a series of tapes which housed the only known recordings of Maai: her lectures on music and spirituality. However, no known recordings of her performances seem to exist. The closest Sharad can come to learning music from her is by learning from those she taught.

As a lonely twenty-something living with his ajji (or grandmother) in Mumbai, Sharad’s work and hobbies blend together.At night, he plays the tanpura, a sitar -like, instrument , during his Guruji ’s performances, gazing upon him eagerly as if being treated to ancient secrets. When the film opens, the camera begins at a distance and pushes toward Guruji performing on stage, but rather than landing on him, it pushes past him and arrives at Sharad, a secondary character living in the shadow of holy figures. At his poorly paying day job, Sharad restores and digitizes the tapes of the reclusive Maai left to him by his father, immortalizing his mentor’s mentor through technological snippets, as if to conjure a ghost from a machine.

Sharad’s physical struggles are about hitting the right notes and phrases when he sings, which Tamhane captures in the form of intimate lessons and performances as part of the guru-shishya parampara , or master-disciple succession. Sharad’s spiritual struggles, however, tend to rear their head during his downtime, when he tries to get away from it all. He rides his bike through Mumbai’s streets with Maai’s recordings playing through his earphones, searching for some nugget of wisdom that might soothe his self-doubts and his feelings of mediocrity. In these moments, time itself begins to slow, as the music shifts in diegesis. With no visible instruments on-screen,the haunting echoes of tanpura strings emerge as if from within Sharad’s own subconscious. A soundtrack to his very soul. As he glides across dimly lit roads and bridges, Maai sternly guides him down a narrow ascetic path, dismissing more free-form, mass-appeal bhajans (or songs of devotion) while espousing the rigid virtues of Indian Classical, as if it were a structured staircase to finding God.

Maai, voiced by Sumitra Bhaave , feels like a fictional amalgam of two of Dr. Dravid’s real-life associates: his serene and personable mentor Gana-Tapaswini Mogubai Kurdikar, who he referred to as “Maai,” and Kurdikar’s daughter Kishori Amonkar, a lonelier, more temperamental figure in the Classical world. The fictitious Maai, while Guruji ’s mentor in the film, appears to take after Amonkar’s personality more than her mother’s, though the character’s narrative function is less that of a real person, and more of a spiritual and political lightning rod for Sharad. As a disembodied, ghostly voice revered by Guruji (and by Sharad’s father), Maai is a cipher for glimpsing unattainable knowledge. But as a woman whose secret, often salacious history begins to come to light, she becomes a double-edged sword for Sharad, a young man who wields her knowledge as a weapon against “lesser” art, but a man whose own sexual repression clashes with the ascetic veneer of his chosen form.

The film cuts suddenly between scenes of Sharad publicly singing, or meditating, or praying — there’s little difference for him — to scenes of him masturbating behind closed doors, with the porn he’s watching in full view of the audience, forcing us into unnerving complicity with his secret desires. In most Indian films (at least, those made for theatrical release), scenes like these would be implicit at best, owing both to censorship and to an increasingly volatile cultural conservatism. But Tamhane, by luring us into a comforting trance of traditional instruments and mild-mannered social gatherings, provides a jolt to the system with this lurid juxtaposition, as if to force the association between the spiritual and sexual out in the open.

This isn’t the only association the film foists upon us. After a brief time-jump to modern day, we’re re-introduced to a more learned, more composed Sharad midway through the film. But we’re also grounded in a political reality, one which seemed to escape even his peripheral vision when he was younger and focused wholly on his craft. Stories of lynchings and religious violence in Narendra Modi’s India abound. They’re inescapable now, and even though Sharad doesn’t address this stark new dimension, it hangs over each performance like an ever-darkening cloud. His art form, after all, is overtly and historically Hindu, and whether he likes it or not, it exists within the broader political context of a Hindu-supremacist state .

The spectre of Islamophobia creeps further into Sharad’s purview, as he learns more about the history of the music he’s devoted his life to, and more importantly, the history of the people he reveres. As if to hold a mirror to the current fraught political moment, he resists accepting their shortcomings, unable to reconcile the ugliness of that which he holds dear — to the point of lashing out.

Although, one thing the film fails to contextualize, which feels like an equally vital dimension, is the spectre of caste. It’s a social structure that has also led to increasing violence in modern India. Religious hierarchies and related practices are often gate-kept by caste hegemony, a tenet of that aforementioned Hindu supremacy. With an ancient artform taught through oral teachings rather than text, limited access to knowledge isn’t a bug, but a feature. As with Tamhane’s previous film, Court — which some have criticized for its failures to frame caste oppression within the broader scope of Indian law — The Disciple seems unconcerned with this intrinsic aspect of Indian art and politics. It’s a sore blind-spot in a work so otherwise adept at capturing how external forces intersect with art and spirituality, and a failing that in turn calls into question the film’s aesthetic focus.

From end to end, the way Tamnahne captures characters like Sharad and his Guruji during their performances speaks to a fixation with idolatry. As they perform — cross-legged, often on raised platforms, and in the hopes of coming one step closer to the divine — they’re framed with an eye towards their relationship to their audience, who gaze upon them as if they were statues of Hindu Gods seated at the head of a temple. The way the camera creeps towards them, on a slowly-moving dolly, feels like walking through the doors of an ornate mandir and approaching the holy with utmost reverence, and utmost caution, though never quite reaching it. The characters may be seated still, but we, the viewers, are constantly thrust into motion in order to capture their spiritual headspace. Performance venues are filled with devotees, but in private moments when Sharad feels lost and uncertain, he sits alone on the ground outside. We creep towards him from behind pillars and other obscuring structures, as if in secret attempt to gaze upon some hidden holiness, the way Sharad himself struggles to gaze upon the bigger picture of the universe.

It’s a potent visual motif, leaving us perpetually untethered from the physical. The camera floats towards and around these seated figures, each fixated with the spiritual, and who in turn become our fixations. Although, one can’t help but wonder if this visual framing is at least slightly undone by the film’s aforementioned thematic misstep. What does it mean for these “upper-caste” characters to be seen, or to see themselves, becoming one with the divine, without the narrative framing of what that self-proclaimed divinity might mean in the broader political context?

However, despite this specific failing, Tamhane’s other ruminations are expressed with utmost clarity. He captures not only the sexual, but the technological as unavoidable facets of the spiritual in the modern world. Each one is as inseparable from the creation (and propagation) of art as the last. As music and technology evolve around Sharad — from the re-emergence of East-West fusion as a novelty , to social media becoming a new water-cooler for the arts — he’s forced to confront the reality that his passion for ancient traditions is no longer one that most people share. Classical training, it would seem, has become a platform for Pop, something Sharad sees as bastardized, sexualized, and impure. Before long, his crowds begin to wane.

The Disciple , however, neither wholly laments nor wholly celebrates this evolution. For most of the film, Sharad ends up silently resigned to whichever way the wind blows (despite pushing back in the few ways he knows how). But the blinders with which he’s learned to seek meaning end up insufficient, in a world where being more connected also means being challenged at every turn. The question of who this art (or any art) is really for, and who should have access to it, ends up rearing its head throughout the story. Is it for the audience? For God? For the self? And who is its keeper? Everyone around Sharad seems to have a different answer, from his peers to his mentors to his family, and the lines between each answer seem to grow more blurry once people look to Sharad for guidance.

Though while Sharad may not have a concrete answer, Tamhane seems to hint at how one might arrive at a solution when the very nature of art, and one’s relationship to it, seems like a gnawing problem. By holding back and staying at arm’s length from the characters, the camera adds devastating emphasis in the rare moments it employs the close-up.

It does so only a small handful of times. Once, in a moment when Sharad seems truly tempted by the erotic musical evolutions he sees as perverse. And once, when he’s faced with the idea of death, and the impermanence of the self. Given how far the film otherwise hangs back, these punctuated close-ups feel enormous and discomforting, as if the camera is beckoning Sharad to come to a more complete understanding of the human experience — of the spiritual, of the physical, and of why art endures in the first place.

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‘The Disciple’ Review: A Brilliant Look at a Passionate Musician in a World That Moves Too Fast For Him

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Northern Indian classical music sounds like nothing other than itself: The jangling of the sitar and the meditational warbling of the improvised vocals known as raga have a profound ancient quality that taps into the mystery of human existence. Ravi Shankar may be the name most closely associated with popularizing such melodies in the West, but the art form (known as Hindustani music) extends well beyond the accomplishments of one man. That’s the hard truth faced by Sharad (real-life musician and acting newcomer Aditya Modak) in Chaitanya Tamhane’s brilliant sophomore drama “The Disciple,” the story of an idealistic young performer who dreams of capturing the magic of a musical traditional that he may lack the talent to achieve himself. In Tamhane’s dreamy, transcendent character study, the undulating raga melodies serve as a transformative portal to self-discovery that places the audiences in the confines of its entrancing power.

“The Disciple” follows Tamhane’s stellar first feature, “Court,” which also looked at the complex role of music in Indian society, in that case through the lens of a corrupt judicial system. Here, the music that Sharad adores take on a more personal connotation, as the man contends with the provincial nature of his vocation in a world that waits for no one. Taking cues from his wizened mentor (veteran singer Arun Dravid), Sharad dreams of obtaining high marks as a classical music vocalist, absorbing enthusiasm for the process from his late father. But there’s a reason only an elite few manage to excel at the rhythmic, transcendental wailings of the raga , and it doesn’t take long to see that Sharad might not have the right stuff.

Sharad has committed himself to spiritual convictions about the art form, and the movie hovers within them in a developing blend of mystery and awe. (At times, it doubles as a documentary of the form.) With his friend, he obsesses over old tapes of obscure vocalists, baffled by the homogenized sounds that come from its most famous living practitioners. Roaming across Mumbai on his motorcycle, he listens to audio tapes from Maii, the raga guru who taught his own mentor, as she rattles off the daunting philosophy behind what it takes to master the craft. “Even 10 lifetimes aren’t enough,” she intones, extolling the virtues of “the eternal quest.”

That’s all well and good for the sacred nature of the pursuit, but doesn’t help a romantic loner whose mother hassles him about getting “a real job.” Sharad’s trapped somewhere between ambition and arrested development: He lives with his aunt, and spends far too much time attending to his teacher’s physical needs, even as the man offers nothing but discouragement. To the untrained ear, Sharad has obvious talent — but the world keeps sending messages that it deserves a different vessel. As Tamhane cycles through Sharad’s miserable routine, from nervous practice sessions to late-night porn indulgences, the movie hints at the potential for a psychological thriller, but the filmmaker has subtler intentions. As the years rush by, Sharad’s forced to interrogate the mythology associated with the discipline through a series of crushing reality checks. Once his childlike adoration melts away and a new sense of responsibility takes hold, the movie finds its footing as a remarkable coming-of-age drama that builds its argument from the inside out.

“The Disciple” unfolds in slow, melancholic rhythms on par with the music at its center. Set against Mumbai’s bustling cityscape, a backdrop at violent odds with Sharad’s contemplative vocation, the movie follows the character through three distinct eras as he grows older and continues to internalize his frustration over his professional inertia. (Modak’s physical transformation from a nimble and clean-shaven 24-year-old to a mustachioed music instructor with a dad-bod is a superb storytelling device.) Sharad experiences a kind of ineffable anxiety that can only be expressed through the abstract language of music — but that keeps failing him, too. In scene after scene, Tamhane’s camera sits with the character as his resentment percolates just beneath the surface. When one producer tells Sharad, years into his career, that he’d be a good fit for an upcoming showcase of “newcomers,” the look of disappointment on his face practically pops off the screen. The same effect settles in when the minutes as he watches the superficial ebullience of an “American Idol” type of show for Indian vocalists, or when he browses negative comments about one of his own performances on YouTube. Sharad’s a purist about his music, but the modern world has no sympathy for his delicate plight.

Tamhane does such a fine job of bringing individual encounters to vivid life that it’s unfortunate when the movie breaks that spell through flashbacks. At the same time, the movie excels at tracking the way Sharad keeps reevaluating his experiences, questioning his convictions about his talent even if he can’t find the words to explain it. Alfonso Cuaron has an executive producer credit on “The Disciple,” and it’s easy to see why the “Roma” director would have an affinity for Tamhane’s glacial style: The movies have an evident kinship for the way they create a complete immersion into one character’s world, navigating the texture and boundaries of memory through subjective experience. In “The Disciple,” those memories cloud the reality of the moment, forcing a reckoning that finally comes to the fore in a riveting climactic performance.

With each quiet moment enlivened by another stirring raga , “The Disciple” charts one man’s quest toward humility in a society that has been defined by self-reflection for millennia. Sharad meditates throughout the movie, but the enigma of his thought process hovers as a question mark throughout. From the first scene until its closing moments, the movie hints at a big moment that never quite arrives, but the profundity comes with the big picture. “The Disciple” is more about the journey than the destination, with a conclusion that suggests the student never really becomes the teacher when the subject is his own life.

“The Disciple” premiered in competition at the 2020 Venice Film Festival and next screens at TIFF and NYFF. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.

The Disciple movie review: A demanding drama from master-in-the-making Chaitanya Tamhane

The disciple movie review: director chaitanya tamhane's new film, out on netflix, is a demanding drama about obsession; another major step in the creative evolution of one of india's most promising young filmmakers..

The music in The Disciple brings to mind that scene from La La Land , in which Ryan Gosling’s Seb, a lifelong devotee, explains jazz to Emma Stone’s Mia, who thinks of it as elevator music. “It’s not relaxing,” Seb says, on the verge of losing it. “It’s conflict, and it’s compromise, and it’s new, every time. It’s very, very exciting.”

The Disciple movie review: Aditya Modak as Sharad Nerulkar, and Arun Dravid, as Guruji, in a still from Chaitanya Tamhane's new film.

There are several scenes in The Disciple, director Chaitanya Tamhane’s second feature film, in which discerning crowds gather to watch a performance of Indian classical music. They bob their heads gently, their bodies swaying in near-unison to the ‘raagas’. I have read foreign journalists who watched the film at the Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals describe the music as ‘soothing’, mistaking it, perhaps like Mia, for what you’d hear in the lobby of a Taj, or at Saravana Bhawan.

Watch The Disciple trailer here

It’s likely that you’re reminded of Damien Chazelle ’s films while watching this one, obsessed as it is with obsession. But thematically and tonally, Tamhane’s follow-up to his modern masterpiece Court has more in common with Japanese cinema.

“Till the age of 40, we didn’t think of anything but practice,” the aspiring 24-year-old musician Sharad Nerulkar’s ‘guruji’ tells him in one scene, after Sharad displays a hint of impatience. Guruji isn’t a hothead like JK Simmons’ instructor from Chazelle’s Whiplash, but more reserved, like chef Jiro Ono, whose relationship with his son was documented so thoughtfully in Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Guruji’s expectations of Sharad aren’t dissimilar to what the greatest sushi chefs demand of their apprentices — years of dedication perfecting knife work and rice-making, before they can even attempt crafting the actual dish.

Sharad reminded me of director Goro Miyazaki, a man who reluctantly followed in his illustrious father’s footsteps, but learned some time later that he simply wasn’t cut out for it. Like Studio Ghibli’s internal affairs, succession plays a key role in The Disciple as well. Sharad grew up hearing his father wax lyrical about the legendary Maai, an idealistic singer who refused to perform for crowds, or allow her music to be recorded. One of Maai’s disciples was Sharad’s own Guruji; this isn’t conveyed in as many words, but it’s almost as if Sharad believes that he belongs to some sort of holy bloodline.

Conquering the world of classical music isn’t merely his artistic ambition, but a spiritual quest. He is a samurai, a monk who goes on nighttime bike rides in Mumbai, almost as an act of meditation. On his rides, filmed entirely in slow-motion, he listens to rare recordings of Maai’s lectures, in which she speaks about resisting temptation — Bollywood is but a block away — and the importance of remaining ‘lonely and hungry’.

Later, when he is getting pictures taken for his website, the photographer asks him to loosen up a little. “Smile, you enjoy singing, don’t you?” he asks. The look on Sharad’s face suggests that the photographer might as well have asked for his mother’s hand in marriage; it’s been a while since he ‘enjoyed’ doing anything.

A still from Chaitanya Tamhane's The Disciple.

As languidly paced as it is, there is a claustrophobic quality to The Disciple that is hard to ignore. Like its protagonist, the film never takes it easy; Sharad has no friends to speak of, he has no hobbies, no real job, and no interests beyond singing. There’s a sense that he’s continuing down this demanding path because of an escalation in commitment — he has invested far too much energy into this to turn back around.

Tamhane’s spare style betrays the influence of his own ‘guru’, executive producer Alfonso Cuaron . But while Cuaron in his most recent film, Roma, was able to conjure up tremendously moving moments, Tamhane maintains the emotionally distant, observational approach that made Court such a classic. It doesn’t work quite as well this time around, because unlike Court, this film is a character study.

Also read: Roma movie review: Alfonso Cuaron has made one of the best films of the decade; a cinematic game-changer. 5 stars

But Tamhane’s gaze is unflinching. We never leave Sharad’s side, across multiple timelines. We are with him when he is at his most vulnerable; as he pleasures himself in his grandmother’s house, when he is told off by Guruji during a live performance, and when the facade of brilliance that he had erected around his heroes (and, symbolically, his country) comes crashing down.

The Disciple is a demanding film, but one can't help but feel that it is another creative leap for a new master-in-the-making.

The Disciple

Director - Chaitanya Tamhane

Cast - Aditya Modak, Arun Dravid

Chaitanya Tamhane
Alfonso Cuaron
Netflix Original
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Review: 'The Disciple' is already one of the year's best movies. Does Netflix know — or care?

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Notably, those demands fall heavily on the audience as well as the artist. The viewer who, like me, approaches “The Disciple” with zero knowledge of Hindustani music may still be hard-pressed by movie’s end to explain the workings of a raga (the musical framework within which singers have the freedom to improvise) or to detect the subtleties of phrasing and intonation that might distinguish a good performance from a bad one. But thanks to the extraordinary concentration of the filmmaking — to say nothing of the hypnotic ambiance of the tanpura and the melodic rise and fall of the singers’ voices — one's ignorance matters less than might be expected. As for the good and the bad: Even the untrained ear will soon grasp that, within this highly competitive world, Sharad is an erratic talent at best. Whether he’s training with Guruji, who’s quick to correct his every vocal misstep, or being ejected early from a young talent competition, he thoroughly disproves the optimistic mantra that hard work and a little luck are all it takes.

Such complexities abound in “The Disciple,” which works as both an unusually penetrating character study and an expansive social panorama. As in Tamhane's splendid 2014 debut feature, “Court” (which can be streamed for free on Kanopy ), nearly every scene consists of a widescreen establishing shot that keeps the characters at a bit of a distance but brings us deep into their world, with its intimate domestic spaces and crowded music halls. It also ensures that the protagonist never quite becomes the hero of his story. Sharad may occupy the center of these capacious frames (meticulously composed by the Polish cinematographer Michal Soboci´nski), but at almost every moment he is surrounded, challenged and even eclipsed by those around him. His aspirations remain heartbreakingly close to the surface, but his solipsism is kept firmly at bay.

Tamhane’s use of visual distance has its antecedents in a staggeringly rich history of art-cinema realism, including the work of his late, great countryman Satyajit Ray. But if you’re reminded of more recent work, namely Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma,” you’re on to something: Tamhane was mentored by Cuarón and worked on the set of “Roma,” and Cuarón in turn provided guidance during this movie's production and is credited as an executive producer.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .

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“The Disciple”: An Indian Classical Musician’s Conflicted Coming of Age

By happy coincidence, a sudden spate of wonderful Indian movies has become available online—two from New Directors/New Films, the classic “ Duvidha ” and the new film “ Pebbles ,” and, now on Netflix (by way of the New York Film Festival), another new movie, “The Disciple,” the second feature by Chaitanya Tamhane, who draws inspiration from classic themes for a film of modern ideas. Set in Tamhane’s home town of Mumbai, it is an artistic coming-of-age story—a tale of the gap between the demands of adulthood and the slow gestation of a musical career under the guidance of a venerable master of the art. Though Tamhane films the story with a profound—and profoundly realized—reverence for the art in question, Hindustani classical music, his view of the musician’s profession and vocation packs a gimlet-eyed skepticism of grand philosophical scope.

“The Disciple” starts in 2006, when the titular protagonist, Sharad Nerulkar (Aditya Modak), who’s twenty-four, is one of only a handful of students of an elderly musician and singer, Guruji (Arun Dravid), and the most fanatically devoted of them. Sharad’s studies with Guruji cross the usual boundaries of an academic relationship: the young man bathes and applies ointment to his teacher’s body, accompanies him to the doctor and even, when necessary, pays his bill. That’s because Sharad’s relationship to Guruji goes beyond that of the other students: Guruji also taught Sharad’s late father (seen, in flashbacks, and played by Kiran Yadnyopavit), who failed to become a professional musician and was embittered by his failure. When he was alive, he gave Sharad music lessons—persistently but gently—and took him far and wide, even as a child, to hear master classical musicians perform. There’s an exquisite flashback to such a concert, held on a riverbank at 5 A.M. , that suffuses the screen with the event’s momentous spirituality. (A side note: Indian classical music is also the main subject of a classic film that’s now available to stream on the Criterion Channel, Amazon, and elsewhere—Satyajit Ray’s 1958 drama “The Music Room,” which is, like “The Disciple,” a story of fanatical devotion to music and a treasure trove of great performances that are thrillingly filmed.)

Sharad practices obsessively (shades of “Whiplash” but with far deeper insights), consuming his life in his pursuit of art. He lives meagrely with his grandmother (Neela Khedkar), refuses to speak with his mother (who pressures him to get on with his life), and holds a poorly paying but engaging job with a music producer who reissues underappreciated classical musicians of the past. Yet Sharad isn’t making great progress: the movie begins with an extended, extraordinary performance by Guruji, accompanied by his students, two of whom meet his stringent standards, while Sharad gets calmly but clearly criticized by him on the stage. Sharad’s fanatical devotion to musical study is also guided by a second teacher. He, his father, and Guruji were all devotees of a woman called Maai, a legendary musician whose private lectures his father taped, in 1972. These eight hours of recordings are Sharad’s prized, jealously held possessions, and he listens to them on headphones while motorcycling through the city, imbibing Maai’s demanding ideas and her hot-forged aphorisms. (Her voice is provided by the director Sumitra Bhave, who died on April 19th, at the age of seventy-eight.)

Maai teaches “surrender and sacrifice,” renunciation of practical or commercial success, even of having a family. She teaches her student to “learn to be lonely and hungry,” and describes her form of music, called Khayal, as a severe test of character. She gives little thought to technique, which she calls “merely a medium to express your inner life.” What she demands, instead, is “the strength to look inwards with unflinching honesty. . . . The truth is often ugly. Unless this awareness seeps into your music,” she adds—and Sharad stops the tape at this critical, terrifying point. Meanwhile, Guruji counsels Sharad to have patience—when Guruji was Maai’s student, he merely practiced until the age of forty. The drama puts these conflicting teachings to the test: midway through the film, the action leaps forward a dozen years. The thirty-six-year-old Sharad, now a part-time music teacher, is still devoted to the ailing and enfeebled Guruji, and is still having difficulty making his way as a performer. For Sharad, the kind of unflinching honesty that Maai demands means a confrontation with his own ugly truth—with his failures.

I won’t dare spoil the outcome of Sharad’s self-reckoning. The movie’s majestic paradox is that Tamhane’s attention to the young protagonist’s story (thinned by a few dramatic shortcuts) is matched—indeed, bested—in his inspired, rapturous portrayal of the two older artists and their creative inspiration and spiritual authority. The spare yet spacious scenes of Sharad riding his motorcycle, as the soundtrack is filled with Maai’s echoing voice, have a power that goes beyond Sharad’s own concentration; they seem to map her grand ideals onto the city and the world at large. Even more than a drama, “The Disciple” offers a probing—and ultimately scathing—vision of artistic psychology and aesthetic philosophy, of the self-cultivation and formation of artists, while offering an ecstatic view of art itself. I’ve long believed that music is the closest art to cinema, and that the filming of musical performance, in a way that transcends mere audiovisual recording, is a uniquely severe touchstone of directorial artistry. Tamhane’s approach to the subject is passionately, probingly creative. He finds a distinctive cinematic music in his filming of the movie’s onscreen performances. Guruji’s performances, in particular, are filmed with a rapt fervor, in tense angles that reveal both his own exalted intensity and the complex interplay between him and his accompanying musicians. In its depiction of Guruji’s mastery, “The Disciple” conjures the wonders and the mysteries of a life that is itself a work of art.

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‘The Disciple’ Review: A Nuanced Look at a Determined Hindustani Musician, Exec Produced by Alfonso Cuarón

In this meticulous follow-up to 'Court,' director Chaitanya Tamhane examines a young Hindustani young singer struggling to overcome self-doubt in order to achieve his goals.

By Jay Weissberg

Jay Weissberg

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When Chaitanya Tamhane ’s extraordinary debut “Court” premiered in Venice’s Horizons section in 2014, it heralded the arrival of a bright talent willing to take risks with a cerebral kind of independent cinema. Graduating to competition at Venice before traveling to other top festivals, the Indian director’s second feature “ The Disciple ” is more ambitious in scope and also more personal, though Tamhane’s approach, abounding in establishing shots, could distance viewers intimidated by their unfamiliarity with north Indian classical music.

For those able to set aside potentially daunting feelings of ignorance, this rich, multi-layered story of a young man’s dedication to mastering the spiritual and technical elements of “raga” singing offers much to ponder on teacher-pupil relations, the nature of performance and the consuming character of an artistic calling. Alfonso Cuarón’s involvement as executive producer should also boost its profile.

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That can be an issue for “The Disciple,” since most cinema audiences don’t have the background to fully appreciate the qualities that distinguish one rendition from another. Even though, by the film’s pitch-perfect ending, attentive viewers may sense they’re able to generically perceive when a vocalist is transcendent versus when they’re uninspired, the lack of background means most of us will feel ill-equipped to make any kind of judgment on what is an important element of the movie’s DNA.

The story begins in 2006, when Sharad Nerulkar (Aditya Modak), 24, prepares for a “Young Performer” competition as a Khayal vocalist. His dedication to his guru (Dr. Arun Dravid) is complete — perfecting his art is an eternal quest leaving little time for anything else, to the frustration of his grandmother (Neela Khedkar). Sharad does have a job, working for Kishore (Makarand Mukund) selling rare CDs of obscure Hindustani musicians from the past, but his waking hours are mostly spent practicing or imbibing the lessons of his master, himself the former pupil of a legendary guru, Maai (Sumitra Bhave, only heard in recordings).

Sharad’s upbringing all but ensured his path in life: His father (Kiran Yadnyopavit) was also a student of Maai’s, but an uninspired one whose devotion to his teacher wasn’t enough to make him a talented performer. His son is haunted by his father’s failure and fearful that if he’s unable to fully immerse himself in not just the music but the philosophy behind it, he too will never achieve the kind of artistic enlightenment that comes from approaching perfection.

The rigor required for this kind of training is conveyed by reel-to-reel tapes Sharad’s father secretly made of Maai’s pronouncements, in which she sternly explains that Khayal music requires not simply technique but the kind of inner peace requiring a lifetime to master. The burden of her pronouncements makes Sharad more unsettled as he struggles to overcome the kind of self-doubt that infects his performances.

About halfway through the film, the story shifts to the present. Older and heavier, Sharad appears to have gained a bit more confidence but remains an inconsistent singer plagued by his inability to achieve Maai’s vaunted state of grace. Kishore sets up a meeting at a café with noted music critic Rajan Joshi (Prasad Vanarse), whose wide-ranging familiarity with the great singers of the past leaves Sharad in awe until the conceited reviewer rips Maai to shreds, claiming she was a self-righteous, elitist fraud. The scene is an emotional highlight of the film, subtly written, with Sharad’s anger mounting as this man tears down his idol: Maai’s declarations do have elements of everything Rajan Joshi claims, yet that doesn’t mean the essence of her teachings is flawed.

It’s this kind of nuanced approach that makes “The Disciple” such an engrossing experience, delicately constructing Sharad’s character in understated tones to create a complex picture of a man’s inner struggle toward the kind of artistic fulfillment few of us will ever experience. His uncompromising focus contrasts with a contestant on a reality talent show named Shaswati Bose (Kristy Banerjee), who undergoes a disheartening transformation when her look and music choices are Bollywood-ized for the big time. This is Sharad’s idea of betrayal to a calling, and he’d rather remain on the sidelines than relax his rigid principles.

As he did with “Court,” Tamhane patiently constructs his characters out of small details, relying on his audience to pick up on small changes and muted shifts of tone that signal the passage of time and Sharad’s interior journey. It’s hard to imagine the film succeeding so well without lead actor Modak’s quiet concentration (not to mention vocal skills), capturing his character’s all-consuming hunger while generally projecting a never-dull placidity. For all its specificity, grounded in Khayal music, the film’s universality lies in the way it conveys the inner struggles of a musician aware he or she may never be good enough, just like an artist, dancer or writer plagued by fears of mediocrity.

“The Disciple” is very much a Mumbai film, finding inspiration in the city’s multilayered realities and the commonality of all urban locations that offer the companionship of specialized communities while also contributing to intense feelings of marginalization and loneliness. The preponderance of establishing shots nicely captures the sense of compartmentalized spaces, from small concert halls, the openness of the city at night, and the varied living quarters spanning middle-class gentility to more spartan quarters (one senses a certain indebtedness to Ozu’s intimate setups). It’s not just the framing that’s so meticulously constructed (and Tamhane’s editing) but the color palette, which shifts to more monochrome tonalities in the second half that nicely contrast with the garish reality talent show and the more diffused light of the flashbacks with Sharad’s father.

Reviewed at the Cinema dei Piccoli, Rome, Italy, August 27, 2020 (in Venice Film Festival; also in Toronto, New York film festivals). Running time: 128 MIN.

Production: (India) A Zoo Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. prod. (North American sales: Endeavor Content, Beverly Hills, CA; International sales: New Europe Film Sales, Warsaw.) Producer: Vivek Gomber. Executive producers: Alfonso Cuarón, Rakesh Mehra.
Crew: Director, screenplay: Chaitanya Tamhane. Camera: Michał Sobociński. Editor: Tamhane. Music design: Aneesh Pradhan.
With: Aditya Modak, Dr. Arun Dravid, Sumitra Bhave Deepika Bhide Bhagwat, Kiran Yadnyopavit, Abhishek Kale, Neela Khedkar, Makarand Mukund, Kristy Banerjee, Prasad Vanarse. (Marathi, Hindi, English, Bengali dialogue)

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The Disciple ending explained – was Sharad happy?

This article discusses the ending of the Netflix film The Disciple, so it will contain major spoilers.

Read the review .

As I highlighted in my review, Netflix’s The Disciple loves and respects the curation of Indian classical music and the dedication that devoted vocalists bring. It’s a film that layers the mastery of music and how it can embed in a person’s identity and life. However, at the crux of it, The Disciple is truly about happiness — was Sharad happy?

Netflix’s The Disciple – the ending explained

The lead character spends most of the film attempting to refine his vocals amongst different settings — the shots regularly zero in on the character. It’s easy to analyze his every thought. He wants to be a master, just like his master Guruji. His striving for perfection places the character into self-doubt and plenty of sacrifices (holding off marriage and a family), leading to many issues that bring an existential crisis.

After spending most of his life dedicating himself to his craft, Sharad reaches a conclusive point where he has to make a decision, which brings a touching and satisfying finish.

What happens next?

In the end, Sharad helps set up a company that maintains and progresses North Indian Classical music to reserver Alwar’s legacy. The company will be offering collections, music classes, and resources.

In the end, Sharad chose happiness — he had spent his entire life aiming for a goal that became more insurmountable as he got older, but in the end, I believe the character understood that the curation and preservation of the music itself are what made him happy, and thus, became more important to him. There’s more than one way to create a legacy.

What do you think of the ending of The Disciple? Comment below with your interpretations and opinions.

Article by Daniel Hart

Daniel is the co-founder of Ready Steady Cut and has served as Editor-in-Chief since 2017. Since then, Dan has been at the top of his game by ensuring that we only produce and upload content of exceptional quality and that we’re up to date with the latest additions to the streaming and entertainment world.

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‘The Disciple’ movie review: A window into the inner conflicts plaguing an artist, shot artfully

Chaitanya tamhane’s sophomore film makes for an immersive, poetic watch, brought to life by a terrific team of technicians and actors.

Updated - August 19, 2022 10:03 am IST

Published - April 30, 2021 03:28 pm IST

A still from Chaitanya Tamhane’s ‘The Disciple’

The world of Hindustani classical music is by design, fiercely esoteric, where masters of the craft flaunt their musical chops with an air of superiority, while their disciples submit wholeheartedly to the pursuit of unblemished perfection. And yet, their tenacious approach in rigidly preserving the ancient traditions passed on to them by their mentors, have unforeseen consequences.

Chaitanya Tamhane’s sophomore film The Disciple is an introspective foray into this inherent need to resist change, while juxtaposing it with the ever-changing modern-day truisms of contemporary existence.

The film’s protagonist, Sharad Nerulkar (Aditya Modak), is industrious and steadfast in his approach to master the Khayal musical form. He diligently adheres to the pedantic stipulations of the enigmatic guru Maai (Sumitra Bhave as heard through various recordings) but finds himself unable to meet the expectations of the people around him.

Sharad refuses to get a job, even alienates himself from his mother, with the single-minded aim to achieve perfection in his singing. At the heart of this endeavour is his burning desire for validation and acknowledgement of his hard work — which for him, is hard to come by.

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Thus, when he witnesses the rise of Shaswati Bose (Kristy Banerjee) — a classical singer who transitions to singing commercial tunes for wider outreach — he is repulsed and drawn to her fame simultaneously.

This fans the flames of inner turmoil gripping the protagonists as we chart his journey as a 24-year-old music student in 2006 to a more mature present-day version of himself. Even after gaining a few years and becoming a teacher of the art form himself, he seems as unsure as he was when he started — pouring over YoutTube comments on his videos, jealousy viewing the works of his other contemporaries.

The pent-up frustration that he tries to hide comes bursting out when a student’s mother asks permission for her son to sing in a college fusion band. The way he lashes out at her is uncalled for and yet obvious. He loathes that one might be appreciated for simply adapting to the dictates of popular culture and yet, he is attracted by the lure of a wider audience that motivates a young musician to pander to the masses.

Director: Chaitanya Tamhane
Writer: Chaitanya Tamhane
Cast: Aditya Modak, Arun Dravid, Sumitra Bhave
Runtime: 2 hours 8 minutes
Storyline: Self-doubt, sacrifice and struggle converge into an existential crisis for a devoted classical vocalist as the mastery he strives for remains elusive

With Mexican filmmaking great Alfonso Cuarón serving as executive producer on the project, the world Sharad inhabits is brought to life by Michal Sobocinski’s deft camerawork, capturing the activities of its characters in congested spaces in Mumbai. The numerous wide shots provide the viewers, a sense of detachment, of not belonging to the world of dingy concert halls and living rooms of private residences. Yet, it pulls them in with various tracking shots of Sharad plying the deserted roads of night-time Mumbai as if to escape from his otherwise ‘enclosed’ existence. Each frame seems to be meticulously constructed, with special attention paid to the mise-en-scène, in pursuit of enriching the story being told.

That, along with the tonality of colours adorning each frame is exquisite and ever-changing, reflecting different moods of its characters and their setting at different junctures of the production. The acting by the central cast is understated, genuine — laying the groundwork for a story that prides itself in not delivering over-the-top moments, but instead chooses to delve into the monotonous nature of everyday existence.

At the heart of the production lies the music as sung by its various characters. The scene where Sharad performs the Raag Bageshri bandish is eloquently shot. His singing emanates a surreal quality, with the potential to intrigue viewers who are uninitiated in Indian classical music.

Similar displays of musical symphonies by Pandit Vinayak Pradhan (Arun Dravid) and his other students play a vital role in establishing the musical aesthetics of the film.

A remarkable shot of the protagonist sitting in a crowded compartment of a local train while a beggar goes about singing, asking for money, conveys more than it lets on initially. In a way, it signifies the plight of an artist in need of recognition, monetary or otherwise, for the craft that he practices.

It seems to be a subliminal insight into the psyche of Sharad, who, in his efforts to become a proper musician, feels the same degree of impoverishment and depravity that the appearance of the beggar exudes. And yet the moving train of life seems to be headed in a singular direction, oblivious of the miseries of its inhabitants.

The Disciple is currently streaming on Netflix

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The Disciple movie review: Chaitanya Tamhane’s second film is a moving ode to lives spent in pursuit of art

The Disciple is a thoroughly Indian film, rooted in the space and cinematic time that director Chaitanya Tamhane creates.

The final scene of Chaitanya Tamhane’s The Disciple – a static shot that runs uncut for about two and a half minutes – is almost a tour de force in the sheer intricacy and potency of cinema as a medium. I won’t talk about what happens in the scene, but if I were to verbally describe the life of the film’s protagonist Sharad Nerulkar in a few lines, and then simply show you that last shot of the film, the shot would still make all the sense in the world; and it would most certainly have some kind of emotional impact on you as well.

Of course, to truly feel the full weight of that final image of The Disciple , you need to experience everything that comes before it. At its barest, the film is a look at the life of an aspiring classical singer in Mumbai, one who spends nearly every moment of his youth consumed by the vagaries of his chosen vocation.

Indian classical music, with all its glorious traditions and esoterica, seems like a ruthless pursuit for someone who yearns for success, an unbelievably tough journey for someone who wants to ‘make it’. Tamhane’s film ultimately ends up taking a deep, hard look at all the different shapes and sizes of what that ‘making it’ might look like, and how so much of it depends on the individual whose perspective we’re seeing it through.

In his twenties, Sharad is filled with hope and ambition. He is earnest; he puts in the hard yards; he is devoted to, almost worships, his guru. You can tell that he has the talent, despite the fact that he tends to bomb, particularly before an audience. His ‘ guruji ’ points out the flaws in his singing or performances unperturbed, reminding Sharad every now and then that his voyage into the sea of classical music is likely to be a long and arduous one, much like the master’s own. Sharad seems to acknowledge and intellectually understand this. But emotionally internalising it? That’s another matter altogether.

We get to see Sharad in three distinct phases of his life. A few flashbacks show us a little of his childhood, focusing on little Sharad’s memories of his father – a trained classical singer himself, attempting to infuse his son with the same ardent love for the art that he has. The main focus of the film though, are Sharad’s youth (his mid-twenties); and then his late thirties (and a little of his forties), by when the world and its ways have weathered him. Even though the film is essentially a collection of scenes from these phases of his life, you get a sense of the toll taken on him not just by what we see in the film, but also by all those decades that you don’t get to see. As we witness his life unfold through these disparate scenes, the film is resolute in not elevating the drama for the most, even though a lot of what we see is inherently dramatic.

Sharad’s relationship with his master; his deification of his master’s master – the near-mythical Maai (voiced with gravitas by the late Sumitra Bhave), who he only knows through audio recordings of her lectures that he listens to on loop; his successes and failures, both in his chosen path as well as his life in general; all of it is imbued with a deep sense of pathos, but it plays out as matter-of-fact as life itself.

If Chaitanya Tamhane impressed with his debut film Court , with The Disciple he displays a vastly improved command over the medium. Every frame seems carefully crafted – Tamhane uses far fewer shots in his films than most directors usually do, so they all have to be worth their presence. While Tamhane’s penchant for wide static frames continues, the camera is noticeably more active than it was with his debut film. Its movements are precise and gentle, carefully calibrated to what the first frame and last frame are meant to convey.

While a lot of the differences in visual craft between Court and The Disciple stem from the fact that the latter is a more personal tale about a defined protagonist, I couldn’t help but wonder if and how much of the story as well as the nature of the camera movement was influenced by Alfonso Cuarón and the time Tamhane spent being mentored by the Mexican master on the sets of Roma. But make no mistake_, The Disciple_ is a thoroughly Indian film, rooted in the space and cinematic time that Tamhane creates.

Each scene – some showcasing almost banal interactions, others holding a lot more significance in Sharad’s life journey – seems to have been chiselled away at and perfected at every stage of bringing the film to life. This extends to the production design, the look of each space and location, as well as to the performances by every key actor in the cast – Aditya Modak as Sharad, Arun Dravid as his guru Vinayak Pradhan, Kiran Yadnyopavit as Sharad’s father, Sumitra Bhave as the voice of Maai and all the other bit characters. Modak, in particular, is the absolute fulcrum of the film, and his physical transformation between the vastly different phases of Sharad’s life is remarkable.

The drama of a struggling musician isn’t a particularly new one. The Coen Brothers’ 2013 film Inside Llewyn Davis , a darkly comic yet poignant tale of a struggling singer in New York City, is a personal favourite. Zoya Akhtar gave her own spin to the Mumbai rapper story with Gully Boy in 2019. (Indeed, Gully Boy ’s Murad and The Disciple ’s Sharad are seen driving/biking along the same flyover at night, in their respective films.) The 2020 Amazon Prime show Bandish Bandits is one way a fluffy masala version of The Disciple could turn out. Yet, Tamhane’s film seems like its own being, like nothing else in this travails-of-the-artist space that comes to mind.

It is a simple story layered with complexity specifically by the medium through which it is told – cinema. Its themes of single-minded devotion to a creative pursuit and the existential dilemmas that accompany it can be extrapolated to any art form; or indeed, to anything that demands extreme rigour and discipline. There are questions it delves into, about the mind of the purist and about the pretentiousness of artistic quests, that could possibly be linked at a metaphysical level to the director’s own approach to his art and craft.

Chaitanya Tamhane sculpts and tunes the life of his protagonist as well as all these debates, large and small, into a stoic movie that leaves you to truly grapple with its simmering emotional undercurrents only with that final shot mentioned at the outset. The Disciple is a worthy sophomore film that ups the expectations for where the filmmaker goes from there.

The Disciple releases 30 April, on Netflix.

Rating: ***1/2

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Review: the disciple is a deeply felt look at the search for musical perfection.

The film gives full dimension to the rich, complex, and sometimes contradictory nature of the relationship between disciple and guru.

Throughout Chaitanya Tamhane’s The Disciple , there are numerous serene interludes during which rare audio interviews of a reclusive, now deceased Indian guru are heard, typically over images of the film’s protagonist, Sharad (Aditya Modak), riding his moped around Mumbai and the dreamlike droning of a tanpura. In one of her many sage sayings, the never-glimpsed guru, Maai, declares, “There’s a reason Indian classical music is considered an eternal quest. And to embark on that quest, you will have to surrender and sacrifice.” As with most of her other quotes, Maai’s declaration speaks to the extreme asceticism she deems necessary to becoming not only a great classical Indian musician, particularly in the raag tradition, but to achieve a state of enlightenment and transcendence.

It’s an alluring, at times intoxicating, pursuit to which the 24-year-old Sharad devotes his every waking moment. Occasional flashbacks reveal his pushy, albeit well-meaning, music-obsessed father (Kiran Yadnyopavit) demanding that he constantly practice, and it’s this paternal tutelage that pushes Sharad to meet his guru, Sindhubai (Dr. Arun Dravid), a revered musician who, like his own guru, Maai, never achieved popular success. And these gurus, living and dead, shape Sharad’s worldview, namely his intense dedication to training and unwavering allegiance to raag, which later becomes at least somewhat problematic.

Sharad’s austere stance toward raag is complicated as Sindhubai not only begins to chastise his student more frequently during lessons, suggesting that he’s not improving no matter what efforts or changes he makes, but openly criticizes him when the two are performing live in front of an audience. Sharad’s devotion to his guru remains resolute throughout this period and the next 15 years that unfold over the course of the film, but it’s here that it begins to dawn on the young man that he may have reached the limits of his potential.

Yet like the destitute musician at the center of Ritwik Ghatak’s The Cloud-Capped Star , Sharad sees singing as more than just a profession; for him, it’s a heightened state of being. And even as we see Sharad become weathered and pudgy as time, along with a lack of success and, naturally, money, wears him down, he remains determined to teach raag at a local school, while still performing and trying to sell CDs of rare raag musicians on the side.

Given the philosophical nature of Maai’s interview snippets and the remarkably beautiful musical performances of Sharad and his guru (unsurprisingly, Dravid and Modak are indeed trained musicians), Tamhane appears, for much of the film, to be fully celebrating the asceticism and endless struggle that Sharad has committed himself to. But as time goes on, we not only see the costs of pursuing perfection, but also the isolation that results from his strict and limiting adherence to practicing and teaching only raag. It’s a single-minded focus that is, in large part, passed down from his own gurus, though when he berates one of his students for wanting to sing raag in a fusion band, it reveals not a love for the artform to which he’s devoted his life, but a domineering spirit that arises from his musical monomania.

Despite the occasional insensitivity, even cruelty, of Sindhubai toward Sharad or Sharad toward his own student, the film takes no moral stand regarding either of the men’s methodologies. The film doesn’t celebrate cruelty as a necessary means toward achieving musical perfection, a la Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash , nor does it take a moral stance against such tactics. Tamhane, instead, is dogged in giving full dimension to the rich, complex, and sometimes contradictory nature of the relationship between disciple and guru, and the issues that arise when young artists put their teachers on a pedestal of nearly mythical proportions.

The Disciple presents this as an intrinsic part of human nature, at least as it pertains to artistic pursuits. We see our mentors, our heroes, our gurus as something akin to perfect, unassailable encapsulations of what we ourselves want to be, and Tamhane sees both the beauty and danger in that notion. When a friend of a friend openly criticizes both Sindhubai and Maai in front of Sharad, it’s no surprise that he gets a glass of water thrown in his face, as an insult to his gurus isn’t a mere insult to Sharad, but a denunciation of his sacred cows.

This scene appears to mark a potential turning point in the film, perhaps serving as Sharad having the rug pulled from underneath him as the man’s derogatory statements about Sindhubai and Maai can be seen as undermining everything Sharad has built his life around. But Tamhane is too skilled a filmmaker to rely on cheap twists, and these accusations are both left unsubstantiated, as it seems possible that the man may have been provoking Sharad, whose pretensions had annoyed him throughout their entire conversation.

Instead, this provocation is shown as another step on Sharad’s quest for musical transcendence, and whether or not, as his friend’s acquaintance suggested, Maai was pretentious and crazy or Sindhubai was bumping up against his own limitations during his early public performances, these revelations shape rather than destroy Sharad’s spirit. The Disciple is certainly fixated on the difficulties that face those on a journey toward perfection, or rather, as Maai says, “a path to the divine.” But the men and women in the film, gurus or not, are undeniably imperfect. It’s what makes them so genuinely human, and that Sharad remains undeterred in his search for that elusive perfection makes him all the more real—neither a hero who should be viewed in awe nor a pretentious ascetic whose restrictive methods lead to his social isolation. He’s instead what he always wanted to be: a true artist, with all the contradictions, complications, and aggravations that go along with that.

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The Disciple movie review: Hits the right notes of excellence

Chaitanya Tamhane's new film intricately weaves diverse threads. It talks of the state of Hindustani Classical music and its 'Guru-Shishya parampara'. There is adequate reference to the blatant commercialising of music, as well as how myths are created around icons in the world of art. Importantly, in a sublime final scene, the film leaves a lingering question. What really is the mark of purity in art -- does it lie in rigorous learning, or is it about simplistic rendition that communicates to all with sincerity?

Tamhane's new film, which boasts of Oscar-winner Alfonso Cuaron as an executive producer, is exceptional for the way it reiterates the value of the musical as a cinematic genre. Richly laced with remarkable classical recitals, the narrative uses its music quotient to do more than merely move the story forward. Here, music is a character in the plot.

"The Disciple" marks Tamhane's return to direction after his globally acclaimed 2014 debut directorial feature "Court". While his new film has similar nuanced portrayal of characters and a keen introspection of reality, the varied plot lends to a different approach in storytelling. "Court" unfolded as caustic satire, using an unflinching gaze at judiciary and caste discrimination. While the film conveyed quiet anger over societal imbalance and corruption in the system, Tamhane' new effort looks within, into the protagonist's psyche in search of angst. "The Disciple" is a difficult coming-of-age saga, tracing a journey from youth to resignation, and encompassing elements of doubt and confusion in its wake.

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Tamhane's triumph here is not just about brilliant writing and execution. A large part of the authenticity is because of the perfect casting. The protagonist Sharad Nerulkar is essayed by Aditya Modak, a trained classical singer. As Sharad's guru Pandit Vinayak Pradhan, Tamhane casts Arun Dravid, a classical exponent and Kishori Amonkar' disciple.

The film traces Sharad's story through three phases of his life. The narrative begins in his twenties, and shifts time frames between his past as a child, with a focus on his father who was also a classical singer. There is also Sharad of the late thirties and beyond.

Sharad of the mid-twenties is devoted to his pursuit of excellence. He fails to win at a classical music competition somewhere around the start of the story, and accepts with fact betraying no sadness. It is a temperament he maintains through much of what unfolds. Sharad's anguish is more private -- he is racked by a streak of self-doubt that, among other things, often hampers his ability to perform on stage. Much later, he is plagued by a sense of confusion and disillusionment when he realises certain truths about ideals.

An important aspect of the story is Sharad's relationship with his guru, Pandit Vinayak. Sharad worships Vinayak who, in turn, was a disciple of his mother, or Maai. We never see Maai in the narrative, but Sharad's silent deifying of his mother is conveyed in the narrative by the way he values the audio tapes she left behind, of lectures on music and the musician's code (voiced impressively by Sumitra Bhave).

"The Disciple" celebrates the craft of filmmaking as few films do. It is a harmony of cinematic excellence in every department. Tamhane's vision as writer, director and editor is brought to life by the entire cast, and also gets exquisite expression in the cinematography of Michal Sobocinski and the efforts of the music team, led by Aneesh Pradhan and Naren Chandavarkar. The film demands your interest if you truly value the aesthetics of cinema.

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The Disciple review – Indian classical musician sings a lonely tune

Years of adherence to stringent rules leave a performer at odds with modern society in this melancholy film from Chaitanya Tamhane, India’s first Venice competitor for two decades

C haitanya Tamhane’s The Disciple comes boldly billed as the first Indian film to play in Venice competition since Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding won the Golden Lion in 2001, just before the Twin Towers fell. That’s a long time for a nation’s film-makers to sit on the sidelines, left out in the cold – assuming they ever saw it that way. Possibly they did not. The Disciple, for one, is about the virtues and pitfalls of steering one’s own course. Its hero is embarked on a long, lonely quest. The bright lights and red carpets hold little attraction for him.

You don’t have to be familiar with the intricacies of Hindustani music to appreciate Tamhane’s heartfelt, melancholy drama although I’d hazard a guess that it helps. That’s because its protagonist, Sharad Nerulkar (Aditya Modak), is steeped in its traditions, living and breathing its phrasing, picking his way through an apprenticeship that’s been known to last a lifetime. He longs to prove himself as an Indian classical vocalist but can’t meet the bills or pay the rent. His mother despairs of him ever settling down with a wife. “I do nothing but practise,” he laments.

Sharad has a white-haired mentor, Guruji (Arun Dravid), who sickens and falters as the decades slip by. But he is also inspired by the teachings of the mythic Maai, a woman who was reputedly the finest singer of all, but whose sole recording output was a series of lectures she delivered in 1972. “If you want to learn my music, you must forget about the audience and other such notions,” Maai advises in voiceover as Sharad steers his moped through the darkened streets of Mumbai, a placid young samurai, on the road to a glory that only he might recognise.

Sharad might prefer to exist in splendid isolation. Fortunately, Tamhane’s film is intent on throwing him up against the modern world. Distractions abound. There’s porn on the internet and talent shows on TV and few people have the time or inclination to stop and hear Sharad’s singing. When he makes the decision to donate Maai’s recordings to a university archive, he is met with little more than polite bemusement. Small wonder that the man eventually comes to question the worth of what he’s doing. Could it be that his calling is a spiritual Ponzi scheme; a means of ennobling drudgery and desperation; the tyrant that keeps him from leading a complete, happy life? The music is gorgeous, but the cost is too high.

I wish that I enjoyed The Disciple as much as I admired it. The film is a labour of love insofar as it feels overthought and overburdened, with all the rough edges planed down. Sharad is a stoic, Job-like presence, occasionally buckling under the strain but soldiering on with a pained half-smile. Would it be too crass to long for a moment where he truly reveals what is driving him on? Where he shows us why he loves this mysterious, ancient music, or perhaps even why he hates it? One thing about ascetics, they keep an audience at arm’s length.

Drama films
World cinema
Venice film festival
Venice film festival 2020
Classical music
South and central Asia

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Summary Sharad Nerulkar has devoted his life to becoming an Indian classical music vocalist, diligently following the traditions and discipline of old masters, his guru, and his father. But as years go by, Sharad starts to wonder whether it’s really possible to achieve the excellence he’s striving for.

Directed By : Chaitanya Tamhane

Written By : Chaitanya Tamhane

The Disciple

Where to watch, aditya modak, sharad nerulkar, arun dravid, sumitra bhave, deepika bhide bhagwat, kiran yadnyopavit, abhishek kale, neela khedkar, makarand mukund, kristy banerjee, vidyanidhee vanarase, ashwini kulkarni, critic reviews.

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‘The Disciple’ review: Bold insights and a few missing notes in the saga of a classical singer

‘court’ director chaitanya tamhane’s new movie stars aditya modak as an aspiring hindustani classical musician..

Chaitanya Tamhane’s The Disciple is an unorthodox movie about a revered artistic tradition. The journey of Sharad Nerulkar, a Hindustani classical vocalist from Mumbai, is also the mapping of the pursuit of perfection, the relationship between mentors and pupils, the conversation between staying pure and selling out, and the burden of legacy.

The Marathi movie is being streamed on Netflix. The Disciple follows Sharad (Aditya Modak) over a decade, during which the second-generation singer attempts to establish himself and crawl out from under the shadow of his father, popular masters and his guru, Vinayak Pradhan (Arun Dravid).

Sharad is devoted to his teacher as well as diligent to a fault. His every waking minute is spent on practice and preserving the history of classical music. When he isn’t exercising his vocal chords, Sharad is immersed in listening to recorded lectures by Sindhutai, an Annapurna Devi-like recluse who considers music a search for the divine and an end unto itself.

The tremulous voice heard on Sharad’s headphones and inside his head is provided by filmmaker Sumitra Bhave . Sindhutai valourises the struggle involved in an “eternal quest” that comes with little reward. Learn to be lonely and hungry, Sindhutai says – advice that Sharad increasingly finds difficult to follow.

The narrative unfolds between 2006 and 2016, cassette tapes and CDs, promise and setbacks. As the classical music scene moves from analogue to digital, Sharad finds himself moving backwards. Sharad’s decline is mirrored by his guru’s increasingly precarious health, and is smoothened along by the realisation that the rules that worked for the previous generation may not hold for a younger one.

Tamhane, who has also written and edited the film, keeps his subject at the distance that exists between the singer on the stage and the listeners in the audience. Tamhane used the distancing effect beautifully in his debut feature , in which a Leftist poet is jailed for daring to speak against injustice. In Court , the absurdities and cruelties of the judicial process vividly came through especially because they were viewed from afar – an unfair contest seen in long shot, with little scope for intervention.

But in The Disciple, the same approach does not always work. It is an impeccably crafted movie, with the right pauses and intonation for the most part. Like many beautiful objects, it is lovely to gaze at but stays hidden behind a glass case.

The use of long and mid-long shots and the frontal shooting style by Polish cinematographer Michal Sobocinski place the viewer in vantage position but also at a remove from Sharad’s existential predicament. Sobocinski’s amber tones emphasise the movie’s view of the guru-shishya tradition as fossilised and Sharad as a specimen worthy of study but not necessarily of empathy.

Tamhane takes immense care to build up a world that he fully intends to demolish. The director’s careful attention to detail and composer Aneesh Pradhan’s music design faithfully recreate Sharad’s middle-class Maharashtrian milieu and the concert halls where he soldiers on. The mostly non-professional cast is drawn from the classical music scene. Lead actor Aditya Modak is a trained singer himself.

The first-time actor does a fine job of enlivening a character in imminent danger of calcification. Like the titular protagonist from Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis , the dour, monomaniacal Sharad eludes categorisation. Is he a victim of a system that bestows stardom on an elite and rotating bunch of singers? Does he lack the spark needed to graduate from apprentice to master?

Is Shard like the son of the engineer and doctor who feels joylessly compelled to follow his father’s path? Is he unsung or actually not a good enough singer?

The 128-minute movie refuses to commit to any one position. The Disciple eschews the traditional, triumphal arc of movies about musicians, preferring instead to chronicle middling talent rather than the extremes of putative genius or misguided effort. The conceit holds well for much of the film, but unravels when the narrative wanders into uncharted territory.

A debate about the impact of televised musical reality shows could have been a whole other movie. Indeed, this debate inspired the Amazon Prime Video web series Bandish Bandits in 2020.

Tamhane isn’t interested in the reductive arguments peddled by Bandish Bandits . Yet, if there is vibrancy and creativity or a genuine sense of achievement and satisfaction in the Hindustani classical music scene, it is elsewhere, far beyond the small and stifling world into which the director has placed Sharad.

Your music lacks life, Vinayak admonishes Sharad. The Disciple is perhaps too successful in portraying a sclerotic universe that cannot accommodate the restless, the outre, or even the purist. The movie undermines the mythos associated with the venerated performing art and replaces it with nothingness. Between excellence and ordinariness lies not the middle ground but a void that swallows up Sharad and sometimes the movie too.

An emotional, universal film’: Chaitanya Tamhane on his new film ‘The Disciple’

Chaitanya Tamhane’s ‘The Disciple’ wins Best Screenplay award at Venice Film Festival

The Disciple
Chaitanya Tamhane
Aditya Modak

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The disciple, common sense media reviewers.

Slow, sad drama has language, limited kid appeal.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Even if you aren't a superstar, you can still be a

Sharad is a dedicated student and perseveres throu

A father tells his son a story about another fathe

No nudity. Two masturbation scenes show a man from

Strong language includes "f---er," "f---ing," "s--

Adults smoke cigarettes and drink alcoholic bevera

Positive Messages

Even if you aren't a superstar, you can still be a teacher and help others. Sometimes the truth isn't as alluring as the narrative.

Positive Role Models

Sharad is a dedicated student and perseveres through setbacks. Despite some dips in confidence, he puts aside relationships and a career to try to reach his dreams. He stands up for his Guruji when he's verbally attacked.

Violence & Scariness

A father tells his son a story about another father beating his son until he sang a song correctly. This father also nailed his children's hair onto the wall so they couldn't go out and play. Another man tells a story of a woman being a "mughal" and a "whore." A man throws a glass of water in another man's face.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

No nudity. Two masturbation scenes show a man from behind pleasing himself to the sounds of internet pornography. A man tells stories of sex workers, "disgraced mistresses," and "kept women."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong language includes "f---er," "f---ing," "s--t," "mughal," "whore," and "hell."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Adults smoke cigarettes and drink alcoholic beverages.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Disciple is an Indian Marathi-language drama about a young vocalist who devotes his life to music and learning from his Guruji. Written and directed by Chaitanya Tamhane, shot entirely in Mumbai, and executive produced by Alfonso Cuaron ( Roma , Gravity ), this film isn't meant for kids. There's no nudity, but a few scenes show a man masturbating to sounds of pornography, and a few stories are told of "mistresses," "whores," and "kept women." Kids may find it incredibly slow and melancholy, with long shots and no cuts. There are also many musical performances throughout that are most often played to their entirety. Some strong language includes: "f---er," "f---ing," "s--t," "whore," "mughal," and "hell." A father tells his son a story about another father beating his son until he sang a song correctly. This father also nailed his children's hair onto the wall so they couldn't go out and play. A man throws a glass of water in another man's face. Adults smoke cigarettes and drink alcoholic beverages. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

In THE DISCIPLE, Sharad (Aditya Modak) is a singer in his early 20s and his friends are finding jobs and getting married. But Sharad is a disciple and he dedicates himself to his Guruji (Arun Dravid) and his music. Trained in an ascetic tradition, Sharad must practice every day, take care of his Guruji (financially and healthwise), and not rush to the end of his tutelage. Guruji even told him that he'd probably have to wait until age 40 to even think about being good enough. How long can Sharad last? Will he become a success? What is success?

Is It Any Good?

There's much to like about this film: the cinematography, the performances, the music, the intimate world-building -- but for many, The Disciple will prove too slow. It's patient filmmaking, dreamy, meditative, and melancholy. Certainly, part of this has to do the with trajectory of the narrative, but because the mood of the film clearly mirrors the narrative, the entire experience, while at times mesmerizing, might be too impenetrable for some viewers.

This is clearly not a film meant for easy consumption nor is it a happy film. It's a contemplation and study of dedication, a clashing of traditional and modern sensibilities, and it's a film that explores internal conflict, futility, bad fortune, and the politics of belief. Ultimately, a lot depends on whether main character Sharad is compelling enough to root for and/or be sad for. Thankfully, he is. Sharad is a kind of modern Willy Loman ( Death of a Salesman ) figure, despite Sharad being a traditionalist confronting modern realities. While the reason for Sharad's path is his belief and devotion to his craft, the reason for Willy's path is desperation . The Disciple might suggest that these two motivations are related. Either way, devotion and desperation and failure are all deeply human experiences and incredibly fascinating. Many will see themselves in Sharad, for better and for worse.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about music in movies. While The Disciple isn't a musical in the conventional sense, how does the film use music effectively? For example, if music often adds (or increases) emotion to what it accompanies, what emotion do you think this film's music best conveys? Why might this be?

What do you think was the overall lesson this film tries to teach? Was the film successful in teaching this lesson? Or, if you don't think there is a lesson of the film, why might this be?

Do you think Sharad believes the stories he hears about his Guruji's mentor? Do you think Sharad cares? Why? Do you think it matters in general? Why or why not?

Movie Details

On DVD or streaming : April 30, 2021
Cast : Aditya Modak , Arun Dravid , Sumitra Bhave , Deepika Bhide Bhagwat
Director : Chaitanya Tamhane
Studio : Netflix
Genre : Drama
Topics : Music and Sing-Along
Run time : 127 minutes
MPAA rating : NR
Last updated : February 17, 2023

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The Disciple Ending, Explained

Some films do not require further explanation, or should I say, any amount of explanation would fall short of the sheer density and profundity of the depiction of a life’s journey packed within a manageable duration of two hours as the film does. Marathi director Chaitanya Tamhane made himself known in Indian critics’ circles through the cinematic brilliance of ‘ Court ,’ and indie drama ‘The Disciple’ adds another feather in his cap. Meditative and brooding, with shining glimpses of spiritual and artistic clarity, the fundamentally humane saga explores the diversified music industry of contemporary India through the eyes of a skewed protagonist.

On the other hand, the film depicts a disciple’s journey to master his art, but artistic perfection eludes him as he gets caught up in a life of struggles, criticisms, greed, and impatience. The film conceals many of the director’s previous themes such as folk music, old age, and existentialism as it unravels itself as a lasting achievement in Indian cinema. The open-ended conclusion encourages the viewers to make their own journey towards meaning, and if you, like me, are left reminiscing the film long after it has ended, let us go hand in hand to meditate over the denouement. SPOILERS AHEAD.

The Disciple Plot Synopsis

The film begins with a poignant performance by veteran classical singer Vinayak Pradhan (Arun Dravid), while his students accompany him in instruments. We meet Vinayak’s protégé Sharad Nerulker (Aditya Modak) as he takes lessons from his guru and tends after him. Sharad prepares for a competition that is breathing on his neck. He goes on shopping to look presentable before the judges and rehearses with backing tracks, occasionally being interrupted by Ajji. At night, he trails along the emptied streets of the city on his bike, with the voice of an ascetic guiding him.

The ascetic, we are told, is Maai, a lesser-known genius trained in the Alwar Gharana of North Indian classical music. Sharad performs the Raag Bageshree considerably well on stage, but his name does not come among the top three performers. Accepting a setback, Sharad goes back to training. He also keeps himself busy with yoga sessions and making copies of rare records of classical maestros. But people only care for established names like Shankar Bhatt and Sultan Sahib, and their collectible gems do not sell well in a concert of famous percussionist Shakir Hussain. Sharad is eager to criticize the performance, lamenting how much his art has changed over the years. On his next training session, Sharad cannot perform well as he becomes repetitive in his choice of paths.

He revisits his childhood, where he is seen to be taking morning lessons from his father, who was also an acclaimed musician. Sharad makes advances towards another disciple, Sneha, and rejected by her, he resorts to porn. The crisis within him spreads roots as he underperforms on a concert of his guruji. He struggles to maintain his voice while his guru’s malady worsens. Sharad does everything in his power to achieve fame, taking part in a photoshoot, coming up with a savvy website, and rubbing elbows with organizers, but those endeavors do not necessarily better his skill. He gets caught up in a world of external stimuli and loses touch with his art. His sincerity does not compensate for his lack of inner peace, and in the end, becomes what he has feared the most – a mediocre book-publishing and socializing artist in a hoard of unsung geniuses.

The Disciple Ending: What Does The Final Scene Mean?

The penultimate shot captures the symmetry of the compartment of a moving train. Life, like the frame, strives to achieve symmetry in thought and action. The symmetry signifies perfection and divinity. Sharad returns from the book release event and the shadow of weariness looms over his face. In the meantime, a singing troubadour enters the scene. If you travel in India on a local train, you will often be arrested by these seemingly unrecognized masters of music. The boy holds what looks like an improvised tanpura, which he plays like a folk instrument, ridding it of classical embellishments.

He sings an old folk song, “Kuen Re Kinare,” and the heart-wrenching notes of his magical voice transport the audience to a mystic realm beyond consciousness. The cryptic lyrics of the Sufi ditty call to a seeker as it attempts to fathom a space beyond rationality, where fishes grow on trees. The “well” of the song signifies the uncharted depths of human consciousness. Sharad’s expressionless face does not give away much, but it is clear that he is captivated by the momentary glimpse of brilliance. The beggar’s performance is portrayed in sharp contrast to Sharad’s own musical thinking as well as the glamorous performance of reality-show contestant Shaswati Bose, both of whom seem to be guided by an external urge to achieve fame rather than their own internal “bhava” or the tranquil state of mind that culminates in “Rasa,” according to the traditional theory of performative art. To put it differently, while Sharad and Shaswati ostensibly give up their search for artistic truth to attain fame and stardom, the boy on the train is driven by the pure bliss and innocence that characterize his every note. Free-flowing and devoid of any prestigious lineage, his art seems pure and honest.

Who is Maai?

This question seems redundant but is important enough to ask since it directly relates to the final scene of the film. Guru Sindhubai Jadav, who is known by her ascetic name Maai, is an esoteric figure in Indian classical music shrouded by obscurity. Seemingly a lesser-known genius from the prestigious Alwar tradition, Maai is the guiding voice of Sharad’s life. His own guru Vinayak Pradhan has taken lessons from Maai, and Sharad listens to the rare lecture series of Maai for inspiration and guidance. The figure of Maai is that of a demigod carefully cultivated throughout the film, only to be shattered in the final moments of exposition.

While we never see the maestro at work, her character is built through others’ recollections and anecdotes. Sharad is increasingly angered by the critic’s scathing remarks, who say bitter things about Maai. According to the critic, Guru Sindhubai Jadav was apparently an islamophobic who denied singing any song composed by a Muslim. Sharad grows seemingly disillusioned and donates the lecture series that he held close to his heart to a music library. In the final sequence, we hear a blissful Sufi song from the ulatbaansi tradition, which is placed in sharp contrast to the purist ideals of Sharad’s musical predispositions which are endowed to him by the teachings of Maai. In the end, then, the prophetic genius of Maai is distilled down to insignificance.

What is the Cause of Sharad’s Relegation to Mediocrity?

It seems that Sharad is preoccupied with the idea of fame and success, and he perceives music as a means to an end. However, as preached by the prophetic voice of Maai, music is a means and an end by itself and does not require any external stimuli. In traditional rasa theory, bhava is the state of mind necessary to perform music. The mind has to be devoid of all thoughts to let the trails of a Raag enter the mind. The performance of Indian classical music, or any music for that matter, happens in a realm beyond self-consciousness as it seeks to communicate to the inner divinity. While Indian music is incomprehensibly diversified, there is a consensus across traditions that sees music as worship. However, Sharad deviates from his path when he desperately seeks to establish himself in the music scene.

His downfall begins with the setback that he receives from the competition at the beginning of the film. He gets demotivated and begins to doubt his art. His character also suffers from sexual frustration, greed, and jealousy, and when he sees his fellow disciple Sneha performing in America, he cannot stop himself from returning to his own performance video, which, to his dismay, is much less well-received. While there are other flaws in the character of Sharad, his relegation to mediocrity is seemingly caused by his capricious mind, as pointed out by his own guru. As a distressed Sharad leaves the stage in the middle of the performance towards the end of the film, we sense that he would not see the light of fame that he has rooted for all his life. In the end, then, Sharad is left to publish memoirs on his guru as he stays a lifelong disciple.

Is Vinayak Pradhan Dead?

Sharad’s guru Vinayak Pradhan is a dominating character that we are made familiar with from the very first shot. He is an artist who has devoted most of his life passing on his tradition to young students. Sharad takes care of his guru throughout the film, who is a salient figure in Sharad’s life. Towards the end, Vinayak’s ailment worsens and he struggles to make ends meet in abject poverty. The ending of the film is characterized by Vinayak’s absence. While his death is not shown in the film itself, it is perhaps implied by the publication of his memoir by Sharad. It can be assumed that Vinayak dies of natural causes due to his old age.

Trap 2024 Movie Reviews: Critics Share Strong First Reactions

Josh Hartnett as the Butcher in Trap movie

Anticipation grows as the first reviews for M. Night Shyamalan's Trap generate hype for its upcoming release in August.

Trap is a 2024 psychological thriller highlighting a serial killer named Cooper, "The Butcher" who goes to a Lady Raven concert with his teenage daughter. He later realizes that the concert is a trap set by law enforcement to try to catch him.

The movie stars Josh Hartnett and Ariel Donoghue It is set to premiere in theaters onAugust 2.

First Reviews for Trap Movie Shared Online

Following an early screening of Trap , critics shared their first reviews and reactions of the new M. Night Shyamalan movie.

Overall reviews are largely positive, with most praising Josh Hartnett's performance, Shyamalan's direction, and the ominous vibe of the film.

Physical Media calls Trap an "absolute banger" while commending Shyamalan and Hartnett:

"I’m happy to report that 'Trap' is an absolute banger. Old M. Night Shyamalan is back with this one. Josh Hartnett killed it and I’m here for his comeback."

Screen Rant's Joseph Deckelmeier praised Shyamalan's "masterclass in building suspense" for the movie, describing Hartnett's performance as "captivating" and "absolutely brilliant:"

"M. Night Shyamalan gives a masterclass in building suspense for 'Trap.' Josh Hartnett is captivating and brings so much humanity to a dark character. He’s absolutely brilliant in this film."

Deckelmier also singled out Saleka Shyamalan in the movie, noting that "she is a true triple threat in Trap :"

"I was blown away by Saleka Shyamalan! She is a true triple threat in 'Trap.' The way that the energy of the music went hand in hand with tension that was building is genius!"

Reece (aka @guywithamoviecamera on TikTok) had a short yet impactful review for Trap , calling the film as M. Night Shyamalan's "best since The Village :"

"M. Night is back baby. 'Trap' rocks. His best since 'The Village.'"

Chris Gallardo of The Hollywood Handle went all-out in his praise for Trap , describing the movie as "a fun thriller that's a return to form for M. Night Shyamalan:"

"'Trap' was a fun thriller that's a return to form for M. Night Shyamalan! Blending the tones of the Halloween movies and the Hitman games, 'Trap' intricately blends these elements to create that ominous atmosphere."

Gallardo complimented Hartnett's facial expressions and dual personality as Cooper and Butcher, noting that the actor unleashed "his inner Michael Myers and Agent 47:"

"Josh Hartnett truly stands out here. His facial expressions were ON POINT when balancing Cooper the Butcher's fake and real personalities. He managed to channel his inner Michael Myers and Agent 47 all at once, adding to that creep factor."

Gallardo also pointed out that Trap "stands high alongside Shyamalan's other works like Split and Knock at the Cabin :"

"Plus, Saleka's songs are some fun bops! While the dialog may feel odd and the editing confusing at times, 'Trap' stands high alongside Shyamalan's other works like 'Split' and 'Knock at the Cabin.'"

Will Trap Be Another Box Office Triumph?

The 2024 movie lineup has been showcasing banger after banger in recent months, most notably with hits coming left and right such as Inside Out 2 (which just became the highest-grossing animated movie in history) and Deadpool & Wolverine 's smashing box office debut for an R-Rated project (per Deadline ).

The strong critic reviews for Trap are a good indication that it will attract audiences wanting to see something new and thrilling next month.

Still, Trap is going up against some heavy competition in August, with the likes of Zachary Levi's Harold and the Purple Crayon (August 2) and Alien: Romulus (August 16) looking to outperform their box office projections.

This is on top of Deadpool & Wolverine 's expected dominance at the weekly box office.

M. Night Shyamalan is no stranger to success since his movies already amassed more than $3.3 billion at the worldwide box office, and it's safe to assume that Trap will continue his momentum in ticket sales.

Josh Hartnett is coming off a scintillating performance in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer where he and the rest of the cast won Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture in 2023's Screen Actors Guild Award.

Based on the reactions, Hartnett's brilliant acting chops seem to be the anchor of the movie, and he may have once again delivered another remarkable outing.

Trap premieres in theaters on Friday, August 2.

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Marvel’s ‘deadpool & wolverine’: what the critics are saying.

Shawn Levy's R-rated film, starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, hits theaters July 26.

By Abid Rahman

Abid Rahman

International Editor, Digital

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Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool/Wade Wilson and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine/Logan in Shawn Levy's 'Deadpool & Wolverine.'

Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters July 26, but the review embargo for the film broke on Tuesday, and the early reaction from critics has been largely positive.

The third Deadpool movie, and first to be included in the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe, stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman as the titular characters and is directed by Shawn Levy. The cast also includes The Crown ‘s Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova and Succession ‘s Matthew Macfadyen as TVA (Time Variance Authority) agent Mr. Paradox.

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‘Time Bandits’ Review: A Flatter Adventure

An adaptation of the 1981 film on Apple TV+ gives us time-traveling bandits of greater height and lesser amusement.

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A group of people in mismatched dress stand in a stone temple

By Mike Hale

When the bandits of the title burst into the bedroom of Kevin, an 11-year-old history buff, in the new Apple TV+ series “Time Bandits,” among the first things you are likely to notice is: no dwarfs.

The show’s source, Terry Gilliam’s 1981 movie of the same title, was all about the dwarfs. There were six of them, who pilfered a map that identifies time portals and used it to try to steal whatever historical loot they could get their hands on. Along the way, they picked up Kevin, who came to serve as both the brains and the conscience of the operation.

The bandits in Jemaine Clement, Iain Morris and Taika Waititi’s “Time Bandits,” which premieres on Wednesday with two of its 10 episodes, are a fully heighted bunch; their more-or-less leader, Penelope, is played by Lisa Kudrow, who towered over her female co-stars on “Friends.”

Changing things up after 43 years is unremarkable, and perhaps the film’s less than nuanced presentation of the dwarf characters as a rollicking, bickering, slapstick bunch marked by physical abandon and short tempers gave the TV show’s creators pause. (On the other hand, the change in those central roles has been criticized as anti-inclusive by advocates for little people, including descendants of the actors who played the original bandits.)

Among the next things you notice about this new “Time Bandits,” though, is that nothing has replaced the energy that Jack Purvis, Kenny Baker and the other actors with dwarfism brought to the film. And while Clement, Morris and Waititi share some of the anarchic sensibility of Gilliam and his co-writer, Michael Palin, they present it here in a domesticated, flattened-out form.

As it follows the peripatetic adventures of the bandits — from visits to the Maya empire and plague-ravaged medieval Europe to battles with dinosaurs and demons to confrontations with Pure Evil and the Supreme Being, the Mutt-and-Jeff deities of the “Time Bandits” universe — the show is unfailingly clever, visually interesting and at least mildly amusing. It is wan, though, compared to other series that Clement, Morris and Waititi have collaborated on, like “Flight of the Conchords” and the riotous “What We Do in the Shadows.”

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'The Disciple' review: Netflix has one of 2021's best movies
A scene from the movie "The Disciple.". (TIFF) By Justin Chang Film Critic. May 5, 2021 6 AM PT. Early in "The Disciple," a brilliantly composed, rigorously intelligent new movie from the ...
The Disciple movie review & film summary (2021)
Especially when it comes to the classics, which Tamhane posits as a cause more lost than Llewyn's friend's cat. "The Disciple" depicts a full lifetime of being someone like Sharad, by jumping to his different memories as a kid, a 24-year-old entering competitions, and later a man in his thirties. It is a non-fussy approach: when things ...
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The Disciple throws cold water on the notion, much beloved by so many inspirational movies, that hard work and a little luck are all it takes. It's an unsparing portrait of artistic frustration ...
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Jul 19, 2024. Without being judgmental, The Disciple succeeds in questioning the age-old notion of sacrifice as a means to attaining higher goals. Mar 25, 2024. Chaitanya Tamhane's sophomore ...
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The thirty-six-year-old Sharad, now a part-time music teacher, is still devoted to the ailing and enfeebled Guruji, and is still having difficulty making his way as a performer. For Sharad, the ...
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This article discusses the ending of the Netflix film The Disciple, so it will contain major spoilers. Read the review.. As I highlighted in my review, Netflix's The Disciple loves and respects the curation of Indian classical music and the dedication that devoted vocalists bring.It's a film that layers the mastery of music and how it can embed in a person's identity and life.
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The final scene of Chaitanya Tamhane's The Disciple - a static shot that runs uncut for about two and a half minutes - is almost a tour de force in the sheer intricacy and potency of cinema as a medium. I won't talk about what happens in the scene, but if I were to verbally describe the life of the film's protagonist Sharad Nerulkar in a few lines, and then simply show you that last ...
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The Disciple
bertobellamy. May 2, 2021. Chaitanya Tamhane's 'The Disciple' is a character study about what it's like to live, knowing you'll never become what you've prepared all your life for. Aditya Modak — who is a real-life musician — is critical to insert us into the frustration of Sharad.
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Kids say: Not yet rated Rate movie. There's much to like about this film: the cinematography, the performances, the music, the intimate world-building -- but for many, The Disciple will prove too slow. It's patient filmmaking, dreamy, meditative, and melancholy. Certainly, part of this has to do the with trajectory of the narrative, but because ...
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The Disciple Ending: What Does The Final Scene Mean? The penultimate shot captures the symmetry of the compartment of a moving train. Life, like the frame, strives to achieve symmetry in thought and action. The symmetry signifies perfection and divinity. Sharad returns from the book release event and the shadow of weariness looms over his face.
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