Black (2005)

Today we have Black from 2005 directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherji.

There are several different facets to Amitabh Bachchan that attract people to him. Moviegoers and fans alike either love him for his angry young man movies, his poetic movies and more recently, movies that feature him as a patriarch. Amitabh, for me, is eternal because though the industry has tried to pigeon hole him into doing a certain type of character, he’s fought against the restraints and proved to the world that he can do anything.

I love Amitabh Bachchan because he can play every role you give him, whether it’s a mob don, a poet or…Debraj Sahi, a mad, passionate teacher like the one he plays in Black. 

In this role he embodies everything I’ve believed in about him as an actorhe’s versatile, he can lose himself in every role, can blend into whatever setting he is asked of. Recently the scripts haven’t been able to do justice to him but his performance and his perfection as an actor bring that movie to life and make it worth watching…as I’ve always said, Bachchan’s worst movie is better than anything another actor can portray.

Of the recent movies, Black is perfect in that the script is solid and Bhansali’s vision is so poetically beautiful 

that the movie flows like a sad, beautiful poem as worthy as Emily Dickenson herself.

I have some issues with the technical aspects of the film…like why does Sahi yell at the girl even though she doesn’t hear him. But other than that, I honestly find no fault.

This movie is superb in the way it’s made. Black is a movie that, I believe, brings Hindi cinema to a whole new level. Never before have I seen such camera flow from an Indian director, and this is why I love Black.

AB, as I said, is beautiful as the tortured, eccentric Debraj Sahi. His endless love for his student Michelle, hauntingly portrayed by Rani Mukherji, and his desire and drive to make up for his past sins, to make up for the sister he lost. Not many actors can show their characters haunted souls but Amitji can show this in a blink.

I also want to share with you my favorite scenes from Black, please enjoy!  

But I have to say- I have always loved hands, just loved them for what they say about a person, what they are capable of doing. So Amitabh using his hands to flow, to sing, to express in this movie, done with an experts flow of sign language…man!

I ask you to watch this movie and watch the emotions suddenly bubble in him when he’s sitting by the water fountain, watch him sit there and try to control what he’s feeling and then suddenly- allows this dam to burst, to flow from him in agony and ecstasy of creation. Or when his illness slowly starts to take over, his eyes become blank, and the confusion and marrow deep sadness when he realizes what’s happening, that he’s losing his mind.

I love the tragedy in this movie, the constant ache that pulses and thrives in every black and white frame of Bhansali’s creation.

Dear Ms. Nair,

-IS