A THIRD ANGLE (IN BLACK AND WHITE)

BY BISWADEEP GHOSH

However good, bad, inane, insane, everybody is entitled to an opinion. But in the case of Sanjay Bhansali’s Black, the situation is rather unique as far as our site is concerned. Why? Because the reactions it has evoked – one from Ashwin Varde, the other from Saibal Chatterjee – are as dissimilar as anything can be from anything else. So, is Black as ethereal as Saibal is convinced it is? Or is it as detestable as Ashwin asserts so emphatically? Mine is a third view. And, nothing more.

This SLB offering has its share of pluses that take it to a plane not matched by any filmmaker from Bollywood for quite sometime. That Bhansali has been able to make a film of a decently high quality is indeed really surprising because many had started viewing the man most cynically after he had made a lavish satire of Devdas and served it on a platter, appalling many movie-goers nationwide. With Black, the maker has been able to show what he is capable of. He has given it his heart, his soul, his everything. And no, it is not fair to say that he is eyeing the overseas market because it is highly unlikely that such a film will do well abroad in commercial terms anyway. After all, the flick does not have Gujjus and Punjabis, it does not have SRK, it does not have an NRI element, it has not come from the stable of Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra. Bhansali has made a sincere effort. And that has worked, at least partially.

Two, the performances. Some of our readers might be familiar with the play called Zoo Story written by Edward Albee, one of the founding fathers of the Theatre of the Absurd. The Albee play has just two characters, one named Peter, the other Jerry, and why the play is so memorable is because there is palpable tension between the two characters that mesmerises the watcher. In Black, the two protagonists are Michelle McNally (a deaf and blind girl played by Rani Mukherji) and Debraj Sahai (an eccentric teacher who comes to change Michelle’s life played by Amitabh Bachchan). When the twosome share the screen, the moments are indeed quite special if not out and out extra-ordinary. Remember the scene in which the girl wishes to kiss her teacher because he has found his way into her heart like no one else? Never mind if he is too old. Never mind if he is not her lover. Never mind if she cannot see. She relates to him in a way she has never ever related to a man in her entire life. That is one of the several scenes during which SLB got everything right.

Everyone has been raving about the film’s cinematography. Indeed, it is exceptional. So is the fact that Shernaz Patel is brilliant as Michelle’s mum and, by casting her, Bhansali has given a fine option to many filmmakers who had forgotten about her very existence. Nandana Sen looks the perfect second daughter of Shernaz because their facial similarities are unbelievable. And just when many had started believing that Bollywood has not had a single quality performance from a child after Jugal Hansraj in Masoom many years ago, Ayesha Kapur as the younger Michelle has proved the theory wrong. In fact, in Masoom, all director Shekhar Kapur needed was a boy with a cute face and a lost faraway sort of look. Hansraj fitted the bill perfectly. But in Black, what Ayesha does is pure acting. As a deaf and blind kid who is hopelessly undisciplined – almost like a wild animal – she comes up with an authentic and authoritative performance.

Now, the shortcomings. While the Helen Keller-Annie Sullivan real life story had to inspire someone, someday, Bhansali isn’t the first. The credit for adapting this story goes to a film called The Miracle Worker in which Patty Duke came up with an Oscar-winning performance by playing Keller. Bachchan’s character is a take on the character of Sullivan played by Anne Bancroft. Briefly, all hopes of coming close to an Oscar die right here.

A couple of minor players have been very badly developed. Known best to most non-Bengali film watchers for his performance in 36 Chowringhee Lane, Dhritiman Chatterjee who plays the girl’s father has been wasted. Ditto Nandana Sen who, to make things worse, actually speaks in wrong Hindi during a dining table conversation in the film. (If somebody were to justify that the McNallys are Christians and, therefore, are not expected to speak in correct Hindi, why did she take off in the language in the first place?)

In the film, the Big B is shown as the miracle man. But since SLB got carried away by the idea of showing the untamed child for far too long, some of the subtle steps which ‘should’ have led to Michelle’s recovery are missing. That is a huge hole in the script, and one fails to understand why it was not looked into while the film was being made. Perhaps, the fact that Ayesha performed so brilliantly was the reason. But that cannot justify the flaw which, to be honest, is the most obvious weakness of the film.

Having said all that, one must add that Bhansali has manifested an intrepid mind by making a film in which there is so much of English in the script. How one wishes he had not missed out on the shortcomings so that Black would have been a really brilliant, and not just a very good, film!

Bee Gee’s Note: No more of Black, although surprises are in store!