While some may applaud his effort to foray into semi-serious film-making, especially moving away from the formulaic song and dance numbers, Bhansali comes up short on delivering the story in the best way possible. The cinematography is absolutely beautiful, and the symbolism, though a bit heavy-handed, is again appreciated. Bhansali manages to do a good job with his actors, but does not deliver the home run he was looking for. Reining in Rani and Amitabh would have made their performances all the more stoic, instead, giving them wild hyperactive motions, and overplaying their histrionics makes a theatergoer wonder what could have been. Black is a solid effort, but by no means the wonder and crossover of Bollywood into something more serious. Bhansali recognizes his great talents as a filmmaker, but as in Devdas, clearly plays for the awards, and makes the film a tribute to his own skill. Devdas was extravagant simply for the sake of extravagance, and while a visual treat, did not really portray the progression of the characters into the abyss, it just showed them at their best and worst points. Black does almost the same thing when it shows extraordinary moments of recognition, but it focuses much more on the dramatic, and not the subtle changes in the characters. This movie is clearly made for awards, and Bhansali does show flashes of brilliance. However, on the whole, his unwillingness to pull back from constantly hitting us with moment after moment instead of letting things build really takes away from the movie, if he truly was looking to make something different. By addressing handicaps, and Alzheimer's, and remaking a truly great film, Bhansali is playing to awards, and when a film tries too hard, as Devdas did, it inevitably falls short. The film as spectacle is great; great cinema, it is not.
