Black

Bhansali's film, taken from the life of Helen Keller. Michelle was born deaf and blind. Her family has no idea how to communicate with her; the house has turned to chaos and nothing has been tried to teach her. Then Debraj Sahai arrives: an alcoholic teacher, harsh, with methods of his own. He teaches her the word water first, and from there a relationship begins that lasts twenty years. The second half inverts it: Debraj develops Alzheimer's, and now he is the one who must be taught to remember. The section where the student becomes the teacher is the film's real idea. Amitabh Bachchan plays Debraj, Rani Mukerji the adult Michelle and Ayesha Kapoor the child. Bhansali restrains his own visual language here: the film sits almost entirely in blacks, greys and blues, and there are none of the song sequences usual in Indian cinema. Its emotional weight is heavy and it makes no secret of that. Anyone who already finds Bhansali excessive will find him excessive here too, but the two-hander scenes between Bachchan and Mukerji are counted among the best work either has done.