My ears are ringing with silence. It’s 1:45 AM and the Netflix post-play screen is just a black void with a tiny timer counting down to the next episode of some show I’ll never watch. But *The Disciple* is over. And I feel… hollowed out. Like I’ve been fasting, but not for food. For meaning. And I just got served a plate of air.
I clicked on it because the poster was so moody. Just a guy, looking intense. And Netflix, my late-night enabler, just queued it up. I was on my couch, of course. Where else would I experience something this… ascetic? My laptop was propped up on a pillow, the fan whirring softly in the corner of my room. The perfect, mundane setting for a movie that’s anything but. I had my headphones on, trying to block out the world, to really *listen*. Because this is a movie about listening.
At first, I was all in. Sharad, this guy, lives and breathes classical Indian music. He wakes up at 4 AM. He practices for hours. He reveres his guru. His whole life is a prayer to this art form. And I was impressed. Genuinely. I was leaning forward, trying to discern the nuances in the ragas he was practicing. I felt like I was supposed to be getting it. I felt like if I just concentrated hard enough, I’d understand the divine language he was chasing. But honestly? A lot of it just sounded like… noise. Beautiful, complicated noise. And I felt guilty for thinking that.
There’s this one moment that’s just looping in my head. He’s in his little apartment, and he’s listening to these old, digitized recordings of his guru and his guru's partner, Maai. The sound quality is terrible. It’s all crackle and hiss, like listening to ghosts through a bad phone line. And he’s just sitting there in the dark, eyes closed, absorbing every corrupted note. He says something about how the digital files have lost the "soul" of the original vinyl. And I just… I felt that. I was listening to it through my cheap headphones, streamed from Netflix, a third-generation copy of a ghost. It made me feel like a fraud, just like him. We're both so far from the source.
It reminded me of when I was 16. I got this cheap acoustic guitar for my birthday. I was going to be the next Jimi Hendrix. I spent a week trying to learn a single chord. My fingers hurt so much. They were red and pressed into the fretboard like little worms. And I just… gave up. I put the guitar in the corner of my room and it just collected dust. I remember looking at it months later and feeling this wave of shame. I didn't have the discipline. I didn't have the… whatever it is Sharad has. That obsessive, all-consuming fire. Or maybe I just didn't want it enough. Anyway, the guitar is probably still in my parents' attic.
The movie is so slow. So deliberately, painfully slow. Long, static shots of him practicing. Walking. Sitting. Just… being. I thought I loved it. I thought it was this profound meditation on obsession and the cost of art. But now that I'm typing this… was it actually just boring? Was I just convincing myself it was deep because it was so self-serious? I don't know. I feel like I'm supposed to say it's a masterpiece, but a part of me just wanted to check my phone. I resisted! But the urge was there, a constant, modern itch in the middle of this ancient, contemplative movie. The at-home experience is a double-edged sword for a film like this. The comfort is a lie.
And then the rug gets pulled out from under him. From under *me*. He finds out his guru, this perfect, divine figure he's built his entire life around, was a flawed, complicated human. That the "pure" music he was chasing was maybe never pure at all. He meets this guy who tells him the truth, shows him evidence. And Sharad just breaks. This whole foundation he built his identity on just crumbles into dust. I was so invested in his quest for purity that when it was revealed as a myth, I felt personally betrayed. I had to pause the movie and just walk around my room for a minute. It was like finding out my childhood hero was a terrible person. It messes with your head.
The ending. I don't know what to do with the ending. He’s on a train, and he hears a street musician singing a film song. A cheap, popular, "impure" song. And he smiles. A real, genuine smile. Is it a smile of acceptance? That true art isn't about purity, but about connection? Or is it a smile of resignation? That he failed, and now he's just another person in the crowd, listening to disposable music? I thought it was beautiful. But now I'm wondering if it's just a sad, deflating ending for a guy who wasted his life. I can't decide.
So yeah. I watched *The Disciple* on Netflix, in the middle of the night, in my comfortable little room, and it made me feel deeply uncomfortable. It made me question my own dedication, my own ability to focus, my own understanding of what it means to be "good" at something. It's not a movie you enjoy. It's a movie you endure. And I think I'm glad I did. I think.
Okay. I need to listen to some loud, stupid pop music. Like, right now.
8/10. - decent
-Ishaan