Debraj is admitted to a mental hospital, where the doctor diagnoses him as the patient of incurable Alzheimer's disease, who has near-inability to remember his past and even how to speak.

When Paul returns, Debraj packs his bags and begins to leave, but at the very last moment, he gets frustrated with Michelle's continuing insolent behaviour, as he is walking towards the door with suitcase in hand.

[10] Bhansali chose to address a subject that no other directors had done before: "I didn't want to stop making a film straight from my heart because of the fear of losing my audiences.

[14] Additionally, Bhansali also read Keller's autobiography The Story of My Life and other related books, including Geraldine Lawhorn's On the Crossroads (about a deaf-and-blind musician).

Bhansali eventually cast Bachchan in Black, after the actor watch his previous work, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999).

He visited schools for physically disabled children and learned haptic communication, which he found to be "very weird because we can not see, hear or talk", from them for six to seven months; he read some books related on it.

[25][26] She spoke positively of her rapport with Bachchan, and stated that she felt "humbled" with the actor, describing him as "a very modest person, very sweet, a father figure".

[28] Mukerji revealed that she was initially reluctant to play the part, when Bhansali read the story Black to her in June that year, because of the "challenging" subject and she had no reference to do it.

"[25] In preparation, she also met children with physical disabilities, this time, at the Helen Keller Institute in Mumbai and practiced sign language there for six months.

[44] After the release of Black, Sabyasachi Mukherjee talked about his experiment with the film's two leads; he found working with Bachchan to be "amazing", as the latter "is so down-to-earth", and similarly to Mukerji, saying that she was the "girl-next-door" and "effortlessly brilliant".

[45][46] They later made their debut as actors in Bhansali's next directorial venture, Saawariya (2007), an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1848 short story "White Nights",[47] which was commercially and critically failed.

When Bhansali narrated the film's story to him, Chandran decided to use the cinematography style same with that of Guru Dutt's 1959 drama Kaagaz Ke Phool.

[55] A month later, the art dealer Farida Hoosenwally also accused him for not return 390 artifacts she lent, and she sent a complaint letter to the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra R. R.

[60] Unlike Bhansali's previous ventures, it has only one lyrics-contained song, titled "Haan Maine Chukar Dekha Hai", written by Prasoon Joshi and performed by Gayatri Iyer.

[61][62] The entire soundtrack album, which has thirty-three songs, was released on iTunes on 10 February 2005 by Yash Raj Films' subsidiary YRF Music.

[70] The trade analyst Amod Mehra felt that the film had good word-of-mouth publicity, though he believed that it would attract a restricted audience: "It might be difficult for such a subject to click in the B and C centres.

[73] The film's theatrical release was originally scheduled on 10 December 2004, but Bhansali decided to postpone it, as the date coincided with the new moon week, which he considered to be "inauspicious".

[13] It was opened in 170 different towns in India on 4 February 2005, the same day as the release of Leena Yadav's Shabd and Irfan Khan's Bullet: Ek Dhamaka.

"[89] Baradwaj Rangan of The New Sunday Express felt that the actress was "outstanding" in the part,[90] which Rediff.com's Sita Menon described as "a pure, performance-driven role".

[92] Khalid Mohammed of Mid-Day added, "Rani Mukherjee is a revelation, belting out a multi-nuanced performance which compels you to reach out for that hyperbolic adjective, awesome.

[96] Namrata Joshi of Outlook wrote of how it "provides a redefining moment in commercial Hindi cinema, pushing its frontiers of narration and style".

"[98] Hindustan Times's reviewer Vinayak Chakravorty rated Black three out of five stars, appreciating Kapur's portrayal of young Michelle and described her as "the anchor of the film's first half".

Gupta, however, believed that Mukerji "who really lights up" the film, concluding, "The tilt of the head, the face, alternating between animation and vacuousness, the slightly open mouth, the bewildered lost look, the jerky gait—any or all of it could have turned Michelle into a caricature.

"[104] The Times of India's critic Jhoomur Bose Malik praised Mukerji's costume, elaborating that "she did cut a diminutive yet striking picture with the cap, the structured black outfits and of course the no make-up look.

[107] The director and critic Raja Sen from Rediff.com also did a comparative review of Black with Paheli (2005), also starring Bachchan (in a guest appearance) and Mukerji (in a lead role opposite Shah Rukh Khan).

He termed the former "a half-baked, often derivative and crucially flawed film", while called the latter "leads to a languorously unhurried fairytale, a unique love story told without fuss".

"[131] The same year, it ranked #1 in Rachna Kanwar of The Times of India's "25 Must See Bollywood Movies", stating that it was "made with astounding sensitivity and enthralling quest for perfection".

[138] In 2010, Filmfare included her work in their listing of Indian cinema's "80 Iconic Performances", and wrote, "... Mukerji sure filled the silences with her stupendous presence and how.

"[139] In its March 2016 issue, New Woman magazine asserted: "It is hard to forget Mukerji ... essaying the role of a speech-impaired, deaf and blind girl with little or no make-up ...

On 5 September, when TMC Films released its trailer, Bhansali sent e-mails to the production company as no remake rights had been purchased, but they did not provide any response.