B L A C K watched Feb 5

Close your eyes,
Cover your ears,
Shut your mouth
Try that for life...

Another movie, post Shwaas that explores the world of Physically Challenged, "Specially privileged" lives. Ayesha Kapur (young Michelle McNally), Rani Mukherjee (Michelle McNally) Amitabh Bachchan (Mr.Saini, I forget his first name... oops) star in this "minimalist" and "most honest communication with audience" opus from Sanjay Leela Bhansali, about spirit, hope and courage.
I want to say that I have watched a good film after a long time. I am deprived of this pleasure cos I had just watched Swades the earlier day. But I guess I can very well say that I have watched two good films from India after a long time.
So what is Black all about? It's about the spirit of living. The spirit of loving life. The spirit of fighting for life. It's about recognising that physical handicap doesn't have translate to a complex. Its about love that transcends all the apparent physical beauty and becomes an association with some one who touches your world only to change it, only to complete it. Its about a teacher and a pupil, their war, their love, their dream, and their ambition, and their spirit.
AB plays an alchoholic teacher who is given the responsibility of breaking into the world of the 8 year old, wild, juvinile, blind, deaf, dumb Michelle. Michelle is been over protected by her over protective parents, who are too frightened to give their daughter a chance to live. They love her too much to see her get hurt, they are too afraid if the light in her black world. They can't break into the silence of her world, and the only sense they allow her is the hug and the food. Over protected, under nurtured, Michelle grows in a world where she doesn't trip over, roams freely, eats freely, without remorse, without discipline, without a sense, without a purpose, with a danger of being branded as mentally retarted and ending up in an asylum.

Into her world, Mr.Saini, the alchoholic teacher enters, without a warning, and attempts to reach her, barge into her black world, and literally drag her into light. She resists, she fights, but slowly she finds the coolness of water, the flutter of the rain, the touch of the words and the sense in their meaning. And she doesn't stop there. With Mr.Saini's guidance, she takes up arts and poetry and enrols in the university after an "interview" where instead of plain answering, she expresses her answers instead. But this is no easy journey for her and she repeatedly fails, much to her teachers dismay and frustration. The turning point comes when Michelle realises that her teacher means her more than the teacher.

The movie culminates with Michelle realising her dream of graduating with a black robe and paying her teacher the highest respect - teach him again, and filling his life with forgotten memories again - after he is attacked by Alzeimers disease.

There are quite a few moving moments in the movie, and the acting of everyone has been high class. I do not know if the movie was flawless, but it was touching nevertheless, especially Ayesha's acting as the young Michelle was just top class.

The movie lingered with me for quite sometime, asking me questions on what I had done with my faculties and what I have done to touch somebody's life so far. The answers are embarassing. But atleast there's hope, and there's an inspiration. Somehow I had decided that I had enough of the movies that made no sense. I could use that money for some place that needs funding. Thanks to the team of BLACK for showing me the Black and white of life.