Black Narcissus - Criterion Collection | Deborah Kerr, Flora Robson

Black Narcissus - Criterion Collection | Deborah Kerr, Flora Robson | An Erotic Ghost Story

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Black Narcissus - ...

	Black Narcissus - Criterion Collection Deborah Kerr, Flora Robson Criterion, 2001 average customer review:based on 73 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The vision of the Archers

Black Narcissus, from Britain's brilliant director/writer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is a genuinely erotic masterpiece about Anglican nuns in the Himalayas (shot at Pinewood studio but the matte work is so good it feels like location work). It exhibits a formal control of mise-en-scene (framing, lighting, colour, visual texture, music, choreography and set design) that is a paradigm of classic melodrama and incidentally elicits some deliriously audacious performances from its assembly of players, especially those of the film's leading protagonists Deborah Kerr as the appropriately purse-lipped Sister Superior and Kathleen Byron as Sister Ruth whose sharp, pointed physical features are exploited to the maximum. Byron's sexual repression, fired by the sight of David Farrar in khaki shorts and the heady Himalayan atmosphere ("there's something in the air here...") teeters on the edge of hysteria and finally explodes into full-blown Gothic madness. Her wraith-like confrontations with Sister Clodagh(Kerr)-whose alter ego she is-in the climactic sequences are operatic and thrilling. Watching Sister Ruth apply lipstick in front of Sister Clodagh after she discards her nun's habit is like watching a striptease. Powell exerts tight control over all his sexually charged images through potent staging (like the endlessly resonating image motif of the bell-tower where the protagonists finally fight it out to the death).

Besides David Farrar (a virile performance) running around provocatively stirring up all the nuns, there's some wonderful exotica on display: Sabu is a very naive but very sexy local Prince curious to learn about Christianity and extolling the charms (to Sister Clodagh's chagrin) of Farrar's drunken, fruity harmonizing of carols during a Christmas service;Jean Simmons appears with eccentric Indian makeup doing a belly dance surrounded by Tantric images on the walls of the former "house of women" now transformed by the nuns into a "house of God"; and there's a series of strikingly oneiric and hypnotically beautiful flashbacks in Ireland that condense the story of Kerr's romantic disappointment prior to her becoming a nun. There's also the throbbing, pulsating score that reaches a frenzied proportions in strong counterpoint to Sister Ruth's flight. It's the kind of exhilarating melodramatic headiness that only film and grand opera sometimes achieve.

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An Erotic Ghost Story

I loved this film, the characters, the setting, what's spoken, and what's left unsaid. Talk about the wrong place to send 5 women (nuns) who are repressing their sexuality...The Women's Palace. It's not the constant winds that haunts these women, but their desires, their regrets, and the memories of this palace that housed concubines in a harem many years ago. Women who had nothing to think about but sex, and waiting for one man to come and fulfill them, and to compete amongst themselves for his attention. The thing that pained them the most was their forced celibacy and endless days of tedium and ennui, sentiments that soaked those walls, so that many years later all these women experience the same longing and desires. Erotic, most certainly, but a haunting ghost story of the first caliber.

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The End of the World

Black Narcissus, based on the book of the same name by Rumer Godden, is about five nuns who seem to go to the end of the world. They are sent to a palace high in the mountains in the Himalayas to start a Protestant missionary. They find themselves in a lonely, cold, wind swept place. The nuns find themselves haunted by memories they can't stop thinking about and a land that calls out to their flesh and their spirits.
Sister Clodagh, the main character, can't stop thinking about the life she ran away from. Everything seems to remind her of the life she fled, of the emotions she was trying to forget and the man she once loved. Like her, the other nuns find themselves trapped inside their minds, trying to deal with the desolate land, with the beauty of the snowcapped peaks and the ancient ways of the native people.
Mr. Dean, the agent of the Old General, is not very helpful. He has long given in to the strange ways of the people and has learned to deal with the erotic women, the green jungle and the rich culture.
The disc holds a ton of great extras, from audio commentary, a 27 minute documentary, a collection of behind the scene pictures and the original theatrical trailer. This is a must for any DVD library.

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VERY interesting film!! We watched it several times!!!

This movie is interesting! It's amazing to see the Darjeeling area in this way. I love this area where the Palace is located. The nuns in this movie are very odd, as they renew their vows yearly, unlike other nuns. Watch this

Black Narcissus

I saw this film many years ago and enjoyed it very much. I still like reading Rumer Godden's books, though some people may consider them a bit dated-she had a good perception of India- I know because I have been married to an Indian for years. The film was an effective adaption of her book of the same name. Most of the cast acted well. The only one I found a bit unconvincing was Jean Simmons-an unlikely Indian. It was not all her fault-they should have toned down that brown make-up and left her natural looks. Many Indians are just as fair. Contrast her with Sabu, who was a real Indian. The settings were so well done-hard to believe the films was not photographed on location.

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