Before commenting on the movie let me give my scores for the actors' performances. Baby Michelle: 6/10, Michelle: 7.5/10, Teacher: 6.5/10, Father: 7.5/10, Mother: 8/10, Michelle's sister: 7.5/10. Screenplay: 7/10, Art Direction: 8.5/10, Cinematography: 9/10, Music: 9/10. Direction: 7/10.<br /><br />Well, that's the summary of the whole movie BLACK. Good try, from Leela Banshali. But if you ask me about ingenuity, I would rather go for RAINCOAT, by the contemporary film-maker Rituporno Ghosh. Black's weakest character I think was baby Michelle, I was mid-way confused whether I was watching a scary-movie or Hellraiser kind. There was no need to make faces like that (ghost movies) for young Michelle, that was not a blind girl's acting. Till date the best child actress from India was the one who acted in Anjali (my rating-wise).<br /><br />The strongest part of the movie was cinematography and music score, simply brilliant, and even the art direction too along with few acting performances.<br /><br />In fact the cameo role by Sen and parents role was superb. Rani's role was very nice, but not a 9/10 role! Amitabh was nice too, but the main fault of the movie, I think was the haphazard screenplay, which effected the overall quality as well as direction of the movie. Despite all its hype in India (may be because it's one of the first times a movie is without songs and all of sentimental flicks here and there), I can't rate this movie at par with Italian, French or Spanish classics. Even not with THE AWAKENING, stellar roles by DeNiro and Williams. This year too Hollywood came up with Finding Neverland, Sideways, Closer; Black doesn't even comes closer to them. <br /><br />But still, I will rate this movie good, because it is of one of the first and boldest attempts to revolutionize the trash-can Bollywood stories and movies.<br /><br />For Bansali, "..Still Miles to go before you Sleep..."! Don't work for getting awards, make a nice movie, just 15 steps ahead lies the success (the line taken from your movie)...GRAB IT! In fact, the most intelligent Bollywood movie I have ever seen (not copying from any Hollywood or European movies) is : MOKSHA...though it went flat amidst Indian audiences.<br /><br />Still I feel, Rituporno's movies are better than Bansali's.