"She is not mentally retarded!" shouts Debraj Sahai (Amitabh Bachchan) when Michelle Mcnally's father describes his multiple-disabled child as an "animal in human form". Black is the story of Michelle, a blind, deaf and mute child, whose Anglo-Indian parents don't know how to reach her in the darkness and silence. The mother (Shernaz Patel) hires Amitabh as a teacher but he must get Michelle educated before his deadline, else the father will lock her away in an institution. Located in the early part of the last century in the picturesque hill station of Shimla, the film moves between the story of Michelle's childhood and her visit to her beloved teacher, now a patient of Alzheimer's disease.