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Black Narcissus (1946)

Director: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

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2 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

What better theatre in which to explore desire, hysteria, temptation and sexuality than a remote convent high up in the Indian Himalayas? And theatre this Michael Powell film most certainly is, as stressed by the gothic melodrama of the story and the acting, the studio setting with its beautiful backdrops and vivid colours and the most deliberate of characters and events. ‘There’s something in the atmosphere which makes everything seem exaggerated,’ says Mr Dean (David Farrar), the nuns’ charming local nemesis. Indeed there is, Mr Dean, and what superbly crafted, elemental and entertaining theatre this Powell and Pressburger film remains almost 60 years on.Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) is taken by surprise when asked to select four nuns from her convent in Calcutta with whom to travel to distant Mopu at ‘the back of beyond’ and found a small, rural nunnery. It’s Sister Clodagh’s experience that forms the intellectual heart of this film, which appears deceptively light at first. Flashbacks reveal the reason behind her decision to become a nun: she fled a well-heeled, rural life in Ireland when a longed-for marriage failed to materialise. Which makes her relationship with bare-legged, rugged Dean – a local charmer and know-it-all – all the more stimulating. ‘Don’t you like children?’ asks Dean provocatively. Another nun, Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron), who we know is ‘sick’, is a violent cauldron of conflicting desires and acts as a mirror to Sister Clodagh’s repression. Their relationship contributes to the film’s most terrifying, artful scenes at its dramatic close.

Author: DC

Time Out London Issue 1824: August 3-10 2005

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User reviews of this film

You've hit the ball out t said...

Posted on Jun 01 2011 03:27 You've hit the ball out the park! Inceridble!

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Peter Ludbrook said...

Posted on Sep 18 2010 11:07 This film is visually astonising in it's new digital restoration but | found the content left a lot to be desired. The story of a group of sexually repressed nuns going hysterical in the Himalayas is frankly ludicrous. The dialogue is stilted and the acting wooden. David Farrar's shorts reduced many in the audience to helpless laughter and reminded me of the late naturalist Steve Irwin. The music by Brian Easdale is dreadful and on the evidence of both this film and "The Red Shoes" I do not understand the inflated reputation of Powell and Pressburger. One of the silliest films I've seen this year. Two stars for the visuals and a special mention for Jack Cardiff's cinemphotography

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