This week's film: Black

posted to bollywood by vanita soni

Starring: Rani Mukherji, Amitabh Bachchan

“Which would you rather be: blind or deaf?” I have had the luxury of asking and answering this question in a completely hypothetical alternate universe that exists only on the whims of the idle.

Watching the film Black, which is about a blind and deaf girl, forces one to see the intensity and hear the anguish of a child growing up in complete incongruity with her environment. This is like the story of Hellen Keller, a legend of human triumph.

Black is not a Bollywood film. In fact, many of Amitabh’s Bachchan’s speaking parts are in English, and the film lacks the familiar love geometry that is a staple of this genre.

Though it is not a Hindi film, rarely have I seen an Indian movie with heroes and heroines as powerful, intense, thrilling, and…well…heroic as Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee. Black is a story that reminds us what it is to be human. Viewers are at once humbled by their dependence on their senses and exonerated by the hope and faith that the human spirit endures adversity.

In this film, Amitabh has taken a refreshing hiatus from his normal cameos in big budget films, where you swear he is playing himself instead of doing any real acting (the Richard Gere syndrome). Instead, Amitabh fully dawns the persona of his eccentric and endearing character, Mr. Sahai, the Teacher. The director has taken full advantage of the sheer acting prowess so often untapped in Amitabh Bachchan.

Rani Mukherjee plays a compassionate blind and deaf woman, Michelle, who is struggling to prove herself and accomplish her goals despite the compounded misfortune that has befallen her since childhood. Rani Mukherjee delivers pure frustration, glaring sincerity, and a pinch of heart-wrenching comedy with a versatility that demonstrates her maturity as an actress.

Finally, the most stunning and breathtaking performance is by the 10 year old actress Ayesha Kapur who plays Michelle as a child. One wonders how the director explained this role to a child. What words exist to explain how a person acts when they have no words to define an environment they can neither see nor hear? However, somehow, Ms. Kapur manages to writhe in her own darkness, her own private world of torture and anger, and despite the fact that she is playing a dumb girl, this actress conveys a message so powerful, the audience is, in one word, speechless.

In addition to the stellar cast performance and intriguing premise, Sanjay Leela Bhansali has truly proven himself as a creative maestro of cinema, further evolved from his work in Devdas and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanaam. His sets are saturated with the mood of the film, his visual themes are powerful and resonant, and his camera shots move the audience with the current of the film with engaging fluidity. Bhansali may have on of the biggest budgets in Bollywood history; his work deserves it.

Of course, the plot requires you to suspend a bit of your belief, a relief as most Hindi films call for complete and permanent expulsion. But, for me, that was easy to overlook, and I sat back to overhear what I believe are absolutely the two best voices in Hindi film, the Mahabharata-scale baritone resonance of Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, and the coarse and finely textured, rich and velvety cadence of the lovely Ms. Rani Mukherjee.