Being unable to see or hear is beyond comprehension for many people and while cinema cannot possibly express it, Black at least shows the joy of life and ambition that we all owe ourselves, regardless of who we are. It is a truly gorgeous film, typical in many ways of Bollywood fare except one. It isn't a musical.

I stress that point for those who don't like musicals and avoid Bollywood as strongly as I once would! There are no show tunes in Black and that is very important because in a story like this, a dance number can only undermine the emotion.

It is a gorgeous story, unashamedly sentimental at times in the best Capra-esque tradition and at least told in the manner of a musical; passionate and theatrical, with broad themes allowing dramatic scenes to almost become set-pieces in an exuberant, almost intoxicating production. This could be a curse as much as a blessing, for despite the incredible performance by Rani Mukherjee as Michelle, whom you importantly never feel sorry for, the central character of any biographical film is rarely an easy one for the viewer to follow. Watching Michelle deal with and conquer her disability from a child to a young, proud woman, is humbling and inspiring, but it lacks the singular purpose demanded by drama. A natural problem for any life story like this is that it has to dip in and out of the life it is most interested in, creating that frustrating set-piece style that is cathartic at best.

And so that dramatic arc has to be found elsewhere and in Black we have several, which is just brilliantly clever! It isn't just Michelle that forms the real story, but that of the relationship with her teacher that lasts a lifetime. The film opens with an adult Michelle discovering that he has returned after a long absence, but he is suffering from Alzheimer's. Her determination to help him reconnect with the world so he can share her success forms a focused framing device, but the bulk of the film is told in flashback as we see how he devoted his life to making her connect at all.


The impressive Amitabh Bachchan grabs your attention as the larger than life teacher, Mr. Sahai, playing him like a triumphant conjurer, which suits this strange musical without music. He is a conductor in search of an orchestra! He hilariously bullies the wild child Michelle into having some sort of purpose and dignity, even when her father demands he leaves, but he doesn't stop there. Michelle becomes determined to graduate from university and he devotes his life solely to helping her do so. It is this unlikely and beautiful relationship that we can identify with more than anything and it is an exhilarating experience that I highly recommend. It becomes a love story of sorts and there is a sub-text about faith too, that Sahai at least wants his life to mean something. His lonely return despite illness at the start of the film is a touch of fantasy that asks us to believe in miracles. Of course, this is especially poetic as Michelle is a living, breathing miracle herself.


Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali's inspiration was the real-life deaf-mute miracle Helen Keller, but he wisely lets the research inform the background through Mukherjee's committed performance and concentrates on leaving the stage free for the double-act that is Michelle and Sahai. He makes it a very handsome film, with help from Monty Sharma's enchanting theme and Ravi K. Chandran's crisp and adaptable photography. There are lots of details that add a little something to the performances without detracting from them. There's a lovely moment where Michelle predicts rain, or where Sahai demands she walks alone and she ends up waddling with her cane past a Charlie Chaplin poster! That isn't the only moment inspired by cinema, another trait of Bollywood. And the touches of romance remind me of another love affair with film in Cinema Paradiso, also a story of an unusual friendship.

I'm reviewing this wonderful film almost with a sense of desperation. A search on FindDVD reveals it is virtually unavailable and out of print. It's very sad when such magnificent world cinema disappears relatively quickly, but I hope many of you make the effort to keep it in mind should it reappear.