Black Impressions
- One of the best opening sequences; Rani Mukherjee’s introduction to her world.
- Brilliant lighting in most of the scenes with hardly any panning to disturb the serene look of Michelle’s home; a movie made entirely of individual crafted frames that seamlessly merge to form a unified motion picture.
- A mother’s silent angst at her husband’s impatience only supplemented by her refusal to let the teacher take over her role as a primary caregiver.
- Ayesha Kapoor, playing the role of young Michelle upstaging the Big B in a display of pure acting prowess.
- Clash of stubbornness that sometimes seems to make you impatient.
- Michelle’s weird dance and funny walk almost like subtle homage to Charlie Chaplain (notice the Chaplain poster in the ice-cream jaunt scene).
- Relieved joy when Michelle finally learns the meaning of water by being dunked in the fountain.
- One of the rare movies without a romantic main plot and not many subplots or characters to distract you from the protagonist; the little ones involving a sister’s jealousy, a girl’s transition to womanhood, and academic frustrations seemed to be directly related to the main plot.
- Subtle reference to a disabled person’s sexuality; a thought that rarely crosses our mind. Barring a couple of giggling idiots, the entire theatre was silent during the Rani-Amitabh kiss.
- Complete silence almost pregnant with choked emotions during Michelle’s graduation speech was broken only by a woman’s loud sobbing, which let others crack up a little, effectively letting them wipe off their tears secretly.
- The only movie I have been to where the audience applauded at the end.
Enjoy Black if you haven’t yet.
“Black Impressions” [Short URL: http://www.ipatrix.com/?p=502] was published Tuesday, February 15th, 2005 at 2:05 am by Patrix, filed under India, Movies, and tagged as Amitabh Bachchan, black, Bollywood, India, Movies, Rani Mukherji, review. Both comments and linkbacks are closed.
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ok, it’s a very well made movie but … but let me take u in on a secret .. it’s a hindi remake of a hollywood 1962 double oscar winner movie The Miracle Worker. that movie depicted the real life of helen keller who was tutored by a woman anne sullivan. it’s true to their story. the hindi remake borrows heavily from that, lifting almost every scene at least upto the interval. the sister , wedding and alzheimer bits have been added to increase the length of the film and to make it appear as different. i was in the usa late sixties and have personally seen that movie 3-4 times. it was really touching. if you dont believe this, click on the url below.
http://www.firsttvdrama.com/show2/history/mir1.php3
this isnt original and far from being an indian in many ways. yet, it’s well made cos it’s stolen scene by scene in hindi with masala added. happy viewing.
5 years ago replyThat’s very interesting. Makes me want to see both.
5 years ago replyGrandman – Thats interesting. I will try to catch that movie. Although the concept might be borrowed, I will be thoroughly disappointed if the movie is copied frame-by-frame.
Chetan – Copy allegations shouldn’t stop you from seeing Black.
5 years ago replyI was one of those, both crying during the movie, and clapping at the end!!!
5 years ago replyI have seen both black and The miracle worker. Lots of scenes are copied frame to frame, especially the one where little Rani is running amock in the dining room and Amitabh is trying to teach her to use a spoon.
5 years ago replyI have no bagful of praises for this movie. I have seen the original Hollywood movie and Black is a shoddy remake…unbelievable at times. Especially the way the teacher forcebly decided to stay and the way Rani Mukherji walked. Is she copying Charlie Chaplin or what….as if copying the movie wasn’t enough. I cannot believe the copycats in our film industry. This movie is just as bad as all other plagiarised hindi movies. When will they learn to be original? No wonder they never win Oscars or any other International awards. Shame on the filmmaker!
5 years ago reply