Imagine being in a room so dark and dense that you know not even the sound of your own voice. To the rainbow infested mind, this could possibly rate as the most claustrophobic event, ever.
Just close your eyes and shut your ears and feel what it is like to be born soaked in BLACK. When you dont know the world except for a helping hand, a shove, a pinch, an exasperated grasp.....And now that you are in....
Sanjay Leela Bhansali is a man with sensitivities which make you still believe that Mumbai Filmdom is more than just a factory. With Khamoshi, he proved that. The film was a unforgettable story of a nightingale born to deaf-dumb parents and her flight to glory. With Black, Sanjay inverts the equation.
~The movie, is the story of Michelle McNeally (Rani Mukherjee), a deaf-dumb-blind girl who is born into a normal upper class Anglo Indian family. The parents do not know what to do with the animal who also happens to be their daughter.
~Ayesha Kapoor as the younger Michelle astounds you as she moves on from rage to wonder to the light of meaning. Shenaz , who portrays Michelle?s mother will make you struggle to hold your tears back as she is caught in the helplessness of loving her daughter but not knowing what to do to help her.
~Then ofcourse, enters the inimitable, Amitabh Bachchan as Mr.Sahay, teacher to the child - a good hearted alcoholic who has spent his life in teaching special kids - yet craving for recognition. With his idiosyncratic ways, he manages to to put Michelles father on the back foot and is promptly asked to leave. Sahay knows that the child has a chance - a chance to know that words have a meaning. He cons the mother into letting him teach Michelle while the father is away on a 20 day trip.
~Therein begins the saga of Michelle?s fumbling steps into the path of learning and freedom. The scene where she learns the meaning of her first word ? Water, can just make you heart leap with joy and want to dance in the rain. Critics have pointed out that this scene is a straight lift from a movie on Helen Keller. But what the hell! It is sheer magic ? deserving a sighting by the purely pan India audience.
~Each scene in the movie has been painfully crafted out. The despondency of a life in blight and also of those most closely affected by it, is captured in such poignant beauty, as only Bhansali can. He is perfectly attuned to the trials and traumas of the McNeally family. Michelle?s sisiter, Sarah feels neglected with the family which centres on Michelle and jubilates at the smallest of her triumphs. The dinner scene, where Michelle and Sarah make their speeches takes you through a rollercoaster of pain and pining. Beautiful!
Bhansali has again come up with a masterpiece. Michelle?s graduation in academia and as a woman is what the movie leads up to. The animal within her transforms into a connoisseur of life who plays along in soundless harmony.
A must watch movie. I know that it is rather late in the day to write a review about the movie, but yet I still longed to write it three weeks after watching Black in motion.
Enough for you to go prod the colour?