Color, Contrast, and Commonality

If one closely examines Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s body of work, one can’t but fail to notice certain common threads that run through his creations. In all his films his protagonists suffer and its cause lies within them.

From the deaf-mute couple in ‘Khamoshi’, to the love-triangle in HDDCS and the self-destructive ‘Devdas’, Bhansali has crafted pathos as a leitmotif.

Add to this the fact that with every film his vision has grown more lavish, more opulent, and more grandiose. So, his work has grown in scale, but what about the growth of the filmmaker as an artist, one might ask? 

In several of his interviews, Bhansali himself has mentioned that he had given this point a thought. And the response that he has come up with—‘Black’—is a piece of work that has continued his growth curve by taking the opposite route. 

It is like two ends of a string that point in different directions, but come together to attain completion. So, from the atrociously meretricious, he has resorted to the sublimely minimalist to complete a circle—the circle of evolution, life, and vision of an artist.

In its essence, ‘Black’ is a spiritual film. It deals with confinement, freedom, and miracles. (Notice the cross symbol on the car window towards the beginning of the film and the same in the asylum room towards the end). It deals with two characters who share commonalities by being perfect opposites in the same manner as two ends of a string. One is the deaf-blind-mute Michelle McNally (Rani) and the other her tutor Debraj Sahai (Amitabh).

Throughout the film, Bhansali has fused together apparent opposites to evolve a similarity, and, sometimes, a third aspect out of them. It is this sense of dualism that lifts 'Black' to the domain of a classic. Hence, Michelle is a child, while Debraj is at the twilight of his life. But both are equally arrogant, obstinate and headstrong. 

The similarity between the two is made even more apparent in the sequences when we see Debraj and Michelle for the first time. A now adult Michelle, accompanied by her sister Sara, finds her tutor seated at the fountain near her house, his back turned towards the camera. (This is also the exact place where Debraj, albeit in an unorthodox manner, led to Michelle’s first tryst with the joy of a spoken word). That is precisely the manner in which we first see the baby Michelle, with her back towards us, being cajoled by her mother Catherine (Shernaz Patel).

Both had turned away from life. But in doing so, they faced each other.

Our first meeting with the child Michelle (Ayesha Kapoor) is accompanied by the jingling sound of tin cans tied to her waist. When we meet Debraj, he is lighting a bulb which is ‘dying’. Their connection is bound that moment on—they bring back in each other’s lives the light of life and the sound of recognition.

While Michelle spends her life in eternal darkness, Debraj is equally blinded by a white room with white walls and streaming light. Michelle’s parents tied a bell round her waist to know of her whereabouts; an Alzheimer’s ridden Debraj was bound by chains. One was lost in eternal darkness from her birth; the other lost his way in the same darkness when he was old. The circle is complete.

The film has a predominance of black, grey, blues, and browns. The first few endeavors that Debraj makes to lend a hand to the disturbed child at communicating from his dark world all deal with white—be it eating rice with a spoon or trying to understand what a napkin is. Later on they both dance ecstatically to celebrate a snowfall.

But Bhansali has not stuck to these hues; he has deviated and done so on several occasions. From the red wine when Sara makes a heart-wrenching speech about her sister, who she admits to be more than envious of; to the red flowers that Michelle brushes against, when she utters her first ever word; the red dress that she wears the night she encounters passion; and, finally, the red ribbon on the certificate that bore testimony to the realization of her life-long dream—Bhansali has masterfully used red as a harbinger of change in Michelle’s life.

The dualism continues in the usage of water as well. What was feared once becomes the source of wonder—'water' happens to be one of the first words that baby Michelle learns. Towards the end of the film, when Michelle opens a new world for Debraj and stretches out his hand, he feels and learns the same word. There are tears of joy welling from his eyes as he retraces one step to the world he once knew. There is an indescribably poignant wordless sequence between the teacher and the pupil, each in a world that are eons apart, but they still connect—through the language of touch.

Black is generally associated with negativity, sorrow, and loss. But from the very first sequence itself, Bhansali has rendered banal such a significance. In fact, he turns it into a color pregnant with promise, just as the darkest part of the night is right before the crack of dawn. It is the color of success and achievement, as made clear in the graduation uniform that Michelle wears with pride. It is also the color that we emerge from and the color that we disappear into. Hence, the beginning and end are one and the same—they are similar by being opposites. 

What brings the two ends together is the story of our lives. And 'Black' is an extraordinary story.

Someone once said that the blind are those who touch words and feel words touch them back. 'Black' happens to be a film that shares the same trait. 

P.S. Even though I own a VCD of this film, I have watched it only once, in the theatre, when it was released in 2005. This piece was written the day after. I have never watched the film again primarily because I was apprehensive that the feelings it evoked will get diluted when my analytical prowess (which was bound to appear during a subsequent viewing) superseded the strong emotional connect I felt the first time round. Sometimes, emotions need to be treasured.