Tuesday, February 15, 2005
"Black" – a powerful and a moving cinematic effort
As soon as the first end credit appeared on the screen ‘A Sanjay Leela Bhansali film’, I got up, muttered to myself ‘A masterpiece’, checked with my pals who were shaking their head in amazement at the splendid creation that they just saw on the silver screen (or to be apt, ‘black screen’) and spontaneously applauded the effort with unabashed admiration. A standing ovation in the theater! Does it not sound and look ridiculous? Trust me, it doesn’t. When you watch the movie, you will realize the truth of what I am saying. And by the way, let me add that the entire theater was handing out a standing ovation to this magnificent effort.
The central character of this movie is Michelle (Ayesha as the kid Michelle and Rani Mukherjee as the grown up Michelle), who happens to be a special person. A person who is deaf, dumb and blind and hence is constrained from birth to lead a normal life. Her world is black, a world which is merciless to her by relentlessly exposing her inadequacies. Without any semblance of order or discipline in her daily chores, she is slowly but surely sliding into a world that will treat her as a person fit for lunatic asylum. Unable to visualize the likely future of her daughter, Michelle’s mother Catherine (Shernaz Patel) calls in a ‘teacher’ Debraj Sahi (Amitabh Bachchan) to transform her daughter into a fine young lady.
The teacher initially faces stiff opposition from Michelle’s father Paul (Dhritiman Chatterji) to his unorthodox methods, but very soon overcomes it by his single-minded dedication to transform Michelle and eventually weaves his magic through an 18 year long journey, taking her to the doorsteps of her graduation. However, an excessive demand by his student (a sensitively shot scene) and the increasing symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease does take its toll on him and he leaves abruptly, leaving Michelle alone to tackle the world. Repenting for her mistake, she waits for him to come back and he does come back, but a thoroughly disoriented person having totally lost his bearings because of the disease. Watch the movie for the remainder of this engrossing drama.
The magic of this movie lies in the excellent portrayal of the various characters by the protagonists. I am still unable to decide the star actor amongst Amitabh, Rani and the child Ayesha Kapur. Ayesha Kapur gives a smash hit performance and it’s hard to believe that it’s a debut performance. Her obstinacy at refusing to get disciplined, (especially in the dining table scene), her impetuousness and her rudeness ironically warms your heart and makes you constantly watch her on the screen with a smile on your face. In fact watching her perform is a sheer delight and I was instantly reminded of Shamilee’s endearing performance in Mani Ratnam’s "Anjali". Shamilee too was a debutante and had got a national award for that movie and it’s highly unlikely that Ayesha will be denied one. A star is born!
As the brutally frank, eccentric and brilliant teacher, Amitabh Bachchan gives an intense performance that simply stuns you. As long as he is on the screen, you are simply captivated by his towering presence. You believe him when he promises the parents that he will weave magic and transform the girl. The script demands a high level of intensity and passion from the character and the great actor once again proves that he is second to none when it comes to essaying difficult characters. It’s difficult because the same character after essaying various emotions of anger, frustration, happiness, aggressiveness has to go to the other extreme and act out as an Alzheimer disease afflicted person and severely tone down the intensity to appear as a sheer helpless person. He does all this and even more.
Rani attempts to play her first unconventional role in her career with utmost sincerity and comes out with all guns blazing. To portray a character who tries to enjoy her life with enormous zest despite the crippling handicaps requires tons of talent and Rani does that in an utterly convincing manner. Nowhere, you feel a tinge of sympathy for the character and the entire credit for this will go to both her and the director. I hope that there will be many more such wonderful character portrayals to come from this talented actress.
Not only these three main characters, but even the supporting cast pulls off their job incredibly well. Dhritiman Chatterji (a brilliant actor on the offbeat circuit who made his debut in the Satyajit Ray movie “Pratidwani”), Shernaz Patel (a renowned theater personality) and Nandana Sen (daughter of Amartya Sen, who acts as the jealous sister) shine in their respective roles.
When I was watching this movie, I couldn’t help contrasting it with another memorable movie “Khamoshi” that was Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s debut. Both the movies share quite a few significant similarities. Both of them have strong female characters that have been portrayed in an outstanding manner; both of them have physically challenged lead characters and finally both of them convey the supreme theme ‘life is beautiful’ through highly contrasting ways.
“Khamoshi” was a musical (that had some needless songs and no doubt would have been a compromise by the first time director Sanjay at that time, to pander to Bollywood’s demands) while “Black” is songless; yet both his movies drive the supreme theme into the mind of the audience with equal intensity. There in lies the genius and chutzpah of this director. He waited for a chance to establish himself in Bollywood and then shot a movie in the way he wanted to all the time, getting rid of all the earlier compromises. Bravo! Sanjay’s direction and screenplay (shared with 2 others) is exceptional in this movie, his best effort till date outshining his earlier 3 efforts - “Khamoshi”, “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam” & “Devdas”.
Ravi K Chandran’s cinematography is simply awesome in this movie. The first scene of the movie (Rani sensing the snowfall) sets the color tone for the remainder of this movie. Shot with the dominant color of black (that occupies 80-90% of the frames in the movie), he lives up to his credentials with another fine display of stunning camera work. For a movie of this nature, the background score needs to be pretty strong to sustain the interest levels of the audience and Monty does exceedingly well in this department. It’s a very touching score that brings goose bumps at several points of the movie.
So, what is “Black” at the end of the day? Is it a trendsetter? An aberration? And more importantly, what does it signify for us, the audience? Black is not a trendsetter for the simple reason that a single movie like this will be accompanied by hundreds of other movies that are downright silly. Let’s be practical. This movie will definitely not lead to a deluge of good movies that will get both the audience and the critics raving about it. At the same time, it’s not an aberration too. This movie has the potential to trigger other good directors to think and make them start on the tough journey of dreaming freely and courageously making their movies in the way they wish to. This decision of judging “Black” to be a trendsetter or an aberration depends on us, the audience. It’s our acceptance or rejection of this great movie that will provide the required boost to these directors and in turn will get us good or bad cinema.
As soon as the first end credit appeared on the screen ‘A Sanjay Leela Bhansali film’, I got up, muttered to myself ‘A masterpiece’, checked with my pals who were shaking their head in amazement at the splendid creation that they just saw on the silver screen (or to be apt, ‘black screen’) and spontaneously applauded the effort with unabashed admiration. A standing ovation in the theater! Does it not sound and look ridiculous? Trust me, it doesn’t. When you watch the movie, you will realize the truth of what I am saying. And by the way, let me add that the entire theater was handing out a standing ovation to this magnificent effort.
The central character of this movie is Michelle (Ayesha as the kid Michelle and Rani Mukherjee as the grown up Michelle), who happens to be a special person. A person who is deaf, dumb and blind and hence is constrained from birth to lead a normal life. Her world is black, a world which is merciless to her by relentlessly exposing her inadequacies. Without any semblance of order or discipline in her daily chores, she is slowly but surely sliding into a world that will treat her as a person fit for lunatic asylum. Unable to visualize the likely future of her daughter, Michelle’s mother Catherine (Shernaz Patel) calls in a ‘teacher’ Debraj Sahi (Amitabh Bachchan) to transform her daughter into a fine young lady.
The teacher initially faces stiff opposition from Michelle’s father Paul (Dhritiman Chatterji) to his unorthodox methods, but very soon overcomes it by his single-minded dedication to transform Michelle and eventually weaves his magic through an 18 year long journey, taking her to the doorsteps of her graduation. However, an excessive demand by his student (a sensitively shot scene) and the increasing symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease does take its toll on him and he leaves abruptly, leaving Michelle alone to tackle the world. Repenting for her mistake, she waits for him to come back and he does come back, but a thoroughly disoriented person having totally lost his bearings because of the disease. Watch the movie for the remainder of this engrossing drama.
The magic of this movie lies in the excellent portrayal of the various characters by the protagonists. I am still unable to decide the star actor amongst Amitabh, Rani and the child Ayesha Kapur. Ayesha Kapur gives a smash hit performance and it’s hard to believe that it’s a debut performance. Her obstinacy at refusing to get disciplined, (especially in the dining table scene), her impetuousness and her rudeness ironically warms your heart and makes you constantly watch her on the screen with a smile on your face. In fact watching her perform is a sheer delight and I was instantly reminded of Shamilee’s endearing performance in Mani Ratnam’s "Anjali". Shamilee too was a debutante and had got a national award for that movie and it’s highly unlikely that Ayesha will be denied one. A star is born!
As the brutally frank, eccentric and brilliant teacher, Amitabh Bachchan gives an intense performance that simply stuns you. As long as he is on the screen, you are simply captivated by his towering presence. You believe him when he promises the parents that he will weave magic and transform the girl. The script demands a high level of intensity and passion from the character and the great actor once again proves that he is second to none when it comes to essaying difficult characters. It’s difficult because the same character after essaying various emotions of anger, frustration, happiness, aggressiveness has to go to the other extreme and act out as an Alzheimer disease afflicted person and severely tone down the intensity to appear as a sheer helpless person. He does all this and even more.
Rani attempts to play her first unconventional role in her career with utmost sincerity and comes out with all guns blazing. To portray a character who tries to enjoy her life with enormous zest despite the crippling handicaps requires tons of talent and Rani does that in an utterly convincing manner. Nowhere, you feel a tinge of sympathy for the character and the entire credit for this will go to both her and the director. I hope that there will be many more such wonderful character portrayals to come from this talented actress.
Not only these three main characters, but even the supporting cast pulls off their job incredibly well. Dhritiman Chatterji (a brilliant actor on the offbeat circuit who made his debut in the Satyajit Ray movie “Pratidwani”), Shernaz Patel (a renowned theater personality) and Nandana Sen (daughter of Amartya Sen, who acts as the jealous sister) shine in their respective roles.
When I was watching this movie, I couldn’t help contrasting it with another memorable movie “Khamoshi” that was Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s debut. Both the movies share quite a few significant similarities. Both of them have strong female characters that have been portrayed in an outstanding manner; both of them have physically challenged lead characters and finally both of them convey the supreme theme ‘life is beautiful’ through highly contrasting ways.
“Khamoshi” was a musical (that had some needless songs and no doubt would have been a compromise by the first time director Sanjay at that time, to pander to Bollywood’s demands) while “Black” is songless; yet both his movies drive the supreme theme into the mind of the audience with equal intensity. There in lies the genius and chutzpah of this director. He waited for a chance to establish himself in Bollywood and then shot a movie in the way he wanted to all the time, getting rid of all the earlier compromises. Bravo! Sanjay’s direction and screenplay (shared with 2 others) is exceptional in this movie, his best effort till date outshining his earlier 3 efforts - “Khamoshi”, “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam” & “Devdas”.
Ravi K Chandran’s cinematography is simply awesome in this movie. The first scene of the movie (Rani sensing the snowfall) sets the color tone for the remainder of this movie. Shot with the dominant color of black (that occupies 80-90% of the frames in the movie), he lives up to his credentials with another fine display of stunning camera work. For a movie of this nature, the background score needs to be pretty strong to sustain the interest levels of the audience and Monty does exceedingly well in this department. It’s a very touching score that brings goose bumps at several points of the movie.
So, what is “Black” at the end of the day? Is it a trendsetter? An aberration? And more importantly, what does it signify for us, the audience? Black is not a trendsetter for the simple reason that a single movie like this will be accompanied by hundreds of other movies that are downright silly. Let’s be practical. This movie will definitely not lead to a deluge of good movies that will get both the audience and the critics raving about it. At the same time, it’s not an aberration too. This movie has the potential to trigger other good directors to think and make them start on the tough journey of dreaming freely and courageously making their movies in the way they wish to. This decision of judging “Black” to be a trendsetter or an aberration depends on us, the audience. It’s our acceptance or rejection of this great movie that will provide the required boost to these directors and in turn will get us good or bad cinema.
The decision has to be taken by us. Let’s do it.
