Sanjay Leela Bhansali's BLACK- a timeless classic (Part 2)

In this part of Black, I will discuss about the contrasts of the situations and characters from the film.

In most of the film, we see Michelle in Black colored clothes(or very dark colored). It signifies that her identity is 'Black' and not her weakness. Even her parents wear dark colored clothes. The surroundings too, are not very colorful or bright. Its either Black colored or a color close to black.
This shows the versatility of SLB as a filmmaker. Its almost surprising to see him make a film with a fixed color palette and small but elaborate sets. Sabyasachi Mukherjee, who designed the costumes of the film has done a phenomenal job.

There are scenes where an yellowish-orange light is either falling on the characters or is around them. I felt that it shows the divinity and blessings to the characters by god. It also appears whenever, there was a talk about Michelle or Michelle herself was the center of attraction in the scene. 

Mrs. Nair comes to Debraj to talk about Michelle.

Michelle finally becomes 'friends' with Debraj and starts trusting him.

Michelle is giving her graduation completion speech.

There is a scene during Debraj's introduction where his room has walls full of some text related to darkness.They were black colored walls and the text was in white color. It was fascinating to see that in his room. It said something about either his past or his life in general.

One of my most favorite scenes is when Debraj tell's Catherine that Michelle has failed, yet again in her exams and later Michelle expresses her dejection to her mother over a telephonic conversation.

It moved me to tears. We can also see Debraj's pain and sadness here. The mother and Debraj have similarfeelings for Michelle.

My other favorite scene is when Michelle finds Debraj near the same fountain where she learnt her first word 'Water' after several weeks, searching for him. Debraj had left Michelle some time back and after which she did not meet him. This shows that Debraj has somewhere not forgotten everything, specially important incidents related to Mischelle, as this was the place where Debraj saw Michelle overcoming her hydrophobia and embracing the water.  

There is a certain symbolism here. For Michelle, her teacher is no less than God. Her respect for Debraj is almost like the devotion of a devotee for his god.

 We see her making a cross symbol on her car's window pane, when Sarah(Her Sister) informs her about Debraj sitting near the fountain. This tells us that Michelle is the God's child and Debraj is a Godly figure to Michelle apart from being a Magician in her life. 

Note that the teacher's name is Debraj which means King of Heaven.

Early in the film we see Michelle as an absolute wild child, trying to find herself. Slowly, with the help of Debraj, she overcomes her fears, struggles and becomes strong,independent and fearless in expressing herself. At the same time, the transformation of Michelle into a free spirited girl also sees the declination of Debraj's memory. He is now trying to find himself and his lost idnetity. He is suffering from Alzheimer's disease which is eating away all his memory, so much so that after a point he forgets himself completely.

Michelle in graduation cap and coat

Debraj and Michelle dancing together earlier in the film

Debraj dances with joy 

But he remembers only one thing, Michelle and his goal to make her a college graduate successfully. This is indicated beautifully in the film, when Debraj sees Michelle as a graduate, in 'Black' graduation cap and coat, Debraj dances the same way when they used to dance together during their happy times. Debraj has reached the stage that Michelle was at one point in her life. 

Also in the same scene, Mischelle and Debraj put their hands out of the window where its raining.

After which the first word that he says to Michelle is 'Water'.

This brings a hope in Michelle's life that her teacher has some memory left and is willing to learn again. This was the same word that Michelle learnt first from Debraj when she was struggling to learn the meanings of words. 

This signifies that now Michelle is the teacher and Debraj is the student.

This aspect is also very symbolic in life. There are times when the same person acts a student to someone and teacher to the same or a different person at another/same time period. Its fascinating to see how the writer and director have linked this to life and given prominence to the fact that learning and knowledge is essential for human growth. There is no fixed age/time for it. 

The whole film is filled with such metaphors and meanings. Its unbelievable to imagine this film or a film like this to be made without SLB and his master-stroke of ingeniousness. 

This film is inspirational and heart-touching. I have never seen a film talking about a Teacher-Student dynamic so poignantly and so symbolically. The actors had excelled themselves and the technicians of the film deserve all the love and respect for participating in a film like this.

My only complaint would be(actually, it will be forever) that Rani didn't win a National Film Award for her incredible, sensitive and career-defining performance for this film. Nevertheless, for me her performance as Michelle McNally has made it to one of my all time favorite female roles. 

There is always so much to observe, learn and understand about SLB and his films. This film is no different. I hope SLB makes more films like these in future and keeps fulfilling his ambitions and dreaming big. Filmmakers like him are endangered in the film industry today. 

I will kepp watching and re-watching Black all my life. This film is an emotion itself. I believe its kind of a mirror to SLB's struggle and achievements as a film director. One can see his signature emotions and motifs throughout the film. I felt there was a lot more that he wants to say through this film (like all his films), which will only be discovered if one sees and observes the depth of the moments in his films.

Here are some of my favorite shots from the film

Thank you SLB for this masterpiece. I hope, over the years, people will discover and acknowledge the beauty and brilliance of this film. For me it stands tall as one of your top 5 films till date. Keep dreaming big!

Your die-hard fan

Anila Velidimalla