Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Black has been called everything from “sublime” to “‘a classic” to “a turning point in Hindi cinema”. Enough to piqué my curiosity, even though one of the reviewers was Subhash K Jha, who uses more superlatives than articles when he writes.
Black is the story of a girl who loses her vision and hearing as an infant, and the teacher who helps her see the world. A premise full of potential – intriguing and original. Bhansali seems to have had half an eye on an international audience (and the big O), and cleverly chose to set his movie in an Anglo-Indian household in beautiful Shimla. With Rani Mukherjee delivering an effective, controlled performance as the deaf and blind girl, and a competent supporting cast, Black could have been a really good movie. Could have been.
Bhansali is content to use hackneyed traits for his characters: Thus the teacher lives in a rundown room, and carries on pointless conversations with a stern looking woman called Mrs. Nair, who has a soft corner for him. He is an alcoholic, with a past that involves a sister who was deaf and blind. The idea being that in the in the process of rescuing the girl, the teacher redeems himself. Remember all those Hollywood movies where a (baseball/football/basketball) coach helps a team of (poor/inner city/woman) players? The coach is usually alcoholic, and speaks cryptic sentences in a wry tone. Yes, this is like that only.
To ensure that no cliché gets left behind, the girl’s dad is skeptic of Bachchan’s unusual methods of teaching and wants him out right away. And the mother is a timid woman who secretly helps the teacher against her husband’s wishes.
Bachchan delivers an atrocious performance as the teacher. His larger than life persona detracts from the role, and he screams out most of his dialogues in vaguely British accented English. For a role that required him to be a headstrong, slightly mischievous alcoholic with melancholic undertones, he comes across as a boorish clown most of the time, reading out imaginary letters to Mrs. Nair, updating her of whatever progress he made that day. Almost cartoonish.
As the girl starts to see the world — even managing to get into a school for “regular” students — the teacher starts deteriorating into dementia, afflicted with Alzheimer’s. The slide is dramatized overly — a series of startling incidents illustrating the slow loss of memory as the movie draws to a predictable end awash in melodrama.
The film is shot beautifully– like many Bollywood directors, Bhansali values style — sometimes at the expense of substance, and Black has scenes that are there just because they are visually appealing. This predilection for visual beauty over realism led Kamalhassan astray in Hey Ram, and is probably why latter day Mani Rathnam movies don’t appeal as much.
Bhansali’s direction in Black is as stale as the script was fresh, turning an exciting premise into a mushy melodrama. Black is another potentially very good movie that ends up being just a good Hindi movie. Good, by the abysmal standards Bollywood has set for itself.
6 Responses to “A Bleak Affair”
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Black
Filed under: Random My Life — Navin Sigamany @ 4:45 pm
Is this why I did not watch Black?
No Commen […]
Hi Karthik,
A review after my own heart! The last sentence rounded it off nicely. One thing I’d like to add, perhaps a feminine point of view, it was a tear-jerker all the way. And I thought the scene where the child makes the connection between the sound and the object very well made.
Vidya
Thanks for the review. I’ll probably give it a skip. Enough of Hindi melodramas for me.
By the way regarding Kamal in Hey Ram, are you talking about those graphics scenes which were’nt subtle at all? To me that was the only jarring point technically in that movie(along with the use of original voices for dubbing that made dialogues hard to follow).
Regarding Mani Rathnam, I think Kannaththil Muththamittaal was a good mix of visual appeal and realism. Alaipayuthey and Ayudha Ezhuththu were more style than substance — several scenes from the latter reminding me of Agni Natchathiram, another movie which was a rage at that time and was more noteworthy for its style.
Hey Ram was a study in narcissistic excess. Every frame was treated as an opportunity to showcase Kamalhassan the actor. There were so many scenes (like the one where he lets his hair down and practices shooting a gun) that were so not needed. A better editor could have made a much better movie out of it.
However, Kamal seems to have matured a lot since then and Virumandi was a very good effort.
[…] Saif Ali Khan, apparently was the best actor this year. Hah. Just wait till next year, when Amitabh wins for Black. This decision will look like a masterstroke. […]
[…] Manoj is angry enough to think Madhavan deserves a left hook to his jaw for thinking Black was a good movie. I shudder. What would he do to Bhavna Giani, when he reads her letter? […]