Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s magnum opus - BLACK hit the theatres in February 2005. It had a powerful star cast to pull the audiences and the marketing through promos had been good enough to arouse the curiosity among the audience. Frankly enough, I was among one of those who decided to watch this movie as early as possible. I got my tickets for the second day of the movie release in Hyderabad.
The movie was a visual treat with the domination of shades of the color - Black. But it wasn’t difficult to differentiate between other colors. The cinematography was perfect and it added wonders to the movie. The level of detail which has been considered by the director is worth applause.
The Central Idea:
The story of the movie revolves around a blind and deaf child, pained and tired parents, a half-jealous sibling and a teacher who thinks that his previous students have failed him by waving in a different direction while seeing him off. It is about the blind and deaf little girl finding meaning of life and becoming capable of independent existence.
The Actors and Characters:
The entry of Debraj Sahai (Amitabh Bachchan) - the indefatigable teacher, was just marvellous. He is a teacher who is always busy in searching for meaningful signs for words, things and ideas. A teacher who feels he wasn’t a very successful teacher but still has the urge to excel, to lead his students ’’ INTO THE LIGHT !’’.
As Debraj, Amitabh Bachchan also manages to add some humor to his character, every now and then, making the best use of his histrionics.The way he used his fingers to explain his students about the seemingly dark world, had a hypnotizing effect. According to Big B (Mr Bachchan), this was his best ever performance and everybody who has seen the movie would agree with him.
Michelle, the stubborn - blind and deaf child who is the central character of the story is played by a debutante child artist - Ayesha Kapoor. Her portrayal was so perfect that at times, she led us into believing that she is what she is portraying. I have never seen such a performance from a new child artist, all my life. Again, the director needs to be congratulated for the talent and skill which got the desired work from the child.
The role of Michelle, the civilised and grown-up lady, is portrayed by Rani Mukherjee. With this role, Rani has secured for herself, a distinguished status as an actor of high merit. She has perfectly emoted all the feelings and sentiments of a blind and deaf person. It was amazing to see how successfully she could portray the fancies and resentments of the character. A scene where she screams and struggles to get her teacher freed from the chains which tie him to his hospital bed, is an award winning one.
Michelle’s pained and distressed mother is portrayed by Shernaz Patel, who has done justice to her role. The role of Michelle’s father is portrayed by Dhritiman Chatterjee, who again has done very well especially when he disagrees with Debraj, for his way of teaching. Michelle’s sister - Sara(Nandana Sen) suffers from ’lack of attention’’ as everything her elder sister does is treated as special and she feels that she is unable to get her much wanted parents’ attention because of her sister.
The Teamwork: Acting, Screenplay, Music, Cinematography and Editing
All in all, the movie is perfect team performance in acting as well as in other areas like editing, cinematography and background music. THe story idea is strong and encouraging. It’s not about darkness, It’s about moving ’’into the Light’’. It’s not about handicaps, it’s about getting out of it. It’s not about failures, it’s about defeating words like ’’failure’’ and ’’impossible’’. It’s about a girl who made her teacher proud by finally reaching where he wanted her to be.
Ravi K.Chandran has done wonders in Cinematography. Prakesh Kapadia’s screenplay was so powerful that it caught the audiences’ unfazed attention. Bela Sehgal has done complete to the editing part. The transition between the scenes is so flawless that one can’t find any breaks between the movie. It goes on and on... Finally, It’s a movie which deserves the best awards in movie making and that makes it must-watch movie.