1/5 Flamboyantly Idiotic; But, Oh, The Pretty Colors!
  by Danusha Goska (Bloomington, IN)
"Black Narcissus" is one of the most flamboyantly idiotic films ever made. Its idiocy is central to its existence. There is no deep, worthy inner soul of "Black Narcissus" beneath its idiotic façade. The deeper you go with "Black Narcissus," the more idiotic and offensive the film becomes. "Black Narcissus"'s idiocy is not without victims. Misogyny and racism kill.

"Black Narcissus" is worshipped by cineastes. Martin Scorsese lauds the film on the DVD commentary. The beloved team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger produced classics like "I Know Where I'm Going" and "Stairway to Heaven." "Black Narcissus" takes place in one of the most distinctive regions on earth: The Himalayas, and yet the film was shot entirely in a studio in England. Painted backdrops, miniature models, and local botanical gardens stand in for the Himalayas. Scene after scene is lushly beautiful and exquisitely composed. Those of us who cherish studio-shot films really want this one to be good. It's not.

The acting here is execrable: bugged out eyes, veins bulging from necks, and distended nostrils.

The Himalayas of "Black Narcissus" is an Orientalist fantasy. It is a pure expression of an oppressive, contemptuous, colonial worldview. Powell and Pressburger made zero attempt to learn even the most basic facts about the region they assert that they are depicting. Every scene crawls with idiocies. African gray parrots and Australian sulfur-crested cockatoos wing through a Himalayan palace. No. Australian kookaburra screech on the soundtrack. No. A character is said to be both a Rajput and a Rai. No. Hindu Rai greet each other with the Islamic, "Salaam." No. Junky artwork from across all Asia crowds the village. No. Everyone rides his or her own Shetland pony. No. Food is abundant enough that a character can discard a class of milk. No. Temperatures are so warm that a male character can prance about in nothing but a pair of hot pants, no shirt, and a fey chapeau from the Peter Pan House of Millinery. No. A character travels, on foot, in moments, from a Tibetan palace at ten thousand feet to a sea level jungle full of South Indians pounding tabla drums. No. A "youngest daughter" - the meaning of the word "kanchhi" - can be a slut in a small Himalayan village and still dress in satin and jewels. No. Sabu as a comically simple-minded, blackface Liberace. No.

A film can be utterly unreal and still integral - if it has an integral soul. "Gone with the Wind" doesn't tell the truth about slavery, but it tells big truths about other enormous themes, thus earning its place in the canon. "Black Narcissus"'s soul IS misogyny, Christophobia, and Orientalism - the colonialist's fantasy that "those people over there" are all alike because they are not English, so it doesn't really matter if we create a mishmash of ethnicities, languages, and costumes to represent them.

Anyone who isn't a proper Englishman exists only to comment on proper Englishmen. Since Englishmen are sexually repressed, Himalayans, in reality some of the most puritanical people on earth, are here depicted as sexual savages. Jean Simmons, Esmond Knight and May Hallatt play Himalayans! Simmons' and Knight's faces are smeared with obvious, oily, blackface, and May Hallatt's head is festooned with yards of fake "Himalayan" hair. Hallatt is a loony nightmare; she flails her arms, screeches, and orders a man to beat a woman; sultry Simmons never speaks, crawls on the ground, and begs for sex: the exotic other, in the English colonial's fantasizing eye.

The utter, uncut hatred of women in this movie is enough to choke any fully human viewer. "Black Narcissus" insists that women exist to be boinked by men. Any woman who wants to achieve something with her life other than being a sex object is faking it. Even as she establishes an institution, teaches in a school or works in a hospital, as these nuns do, she is fantasizing about men she wishes she could be boinking.

No woman gets any real satisfaction from work; work is something women do to escape their nagging nympho fantasies. Women are incompetent anyway, and when their projects inevitably fail, they tremble, collapse, and sob, "Mr. Dean! Mr. Dean! Rescue me!" When not boinked, women go mad and kill each other. There is only one exception: The one fat and the one old nun in this movie are not shown fantasizing about men. The misogynist imaginations that populated these nasty little caricatures can't imagine that women they don't want to have sex with have any sexual identity at all.

"Black Narcissus" insists that Himalayans "don't want a school and don't want a hospital." Himalayan people are happy being ignorant and dying young of preventable illnesses. How blind do you have to be not to see the racism in that lie?

Why not tell the truth about missionaries and nuns? That Christians, for example, were key in ending sati - the Hindu practice of burning widows alive - and tried to stop female infanticide in India? Why not tell the truth about the compassion and toughness of figures like Father Damien and Mother Teresa? About nuns who, today, scoop up abandoned lepers in the streets and show them the only compassion they will ever know? I've been lucky enough to spend considerable time in the Himalaya, some of it among the Sisters of Charity, and Edmund Hillary Trust missions, schools, and hospitals. The people of the Himalaya very much do want schools and hospitals, and foreign, Christian doctors and nuns are doing work that the champions of this tawdry, pathetic little film will never do.

And another thing - this film's treatment of the mentally ill is nauseating. Mentally ill people have very pale, sweat-beaded skin and red-rimmed eyes, and they are even hornier than the rest of the females. Sheesh. But that's a whole 'nother thousand words.


5/5 Example of the all the best in filmmaking
  by C. J. Leach (Midwest, United States)
The Oscar-winning 1947 story of a group of 5 nuns establishing a school/hospital mission at an ancient remote Himalayan palace . . . a former harem. They are to serve the village in the valley far below. Remarkably, this was all shot in a London studio - not the windswept mountainside that the viewer seems to be looking at.

The nuns seem to all be having serious misgivings regarding their vocation, and the pull of their former lives. There is arising sexual tension (usually masterfully subtle) between the sisters and the king's male liaison. Beautiful Deborah Kerr somehow manages to pull off playing the role of a rather severe but compassionate, young and fast-rising Sister Superior, at all times decorous, yet frequently oozing sensuality. She is always in full habit, with just partial face exposed. Superb performance. The viewer is left with gray areas to guess at regarding real intentions of the various players. Kudos to director Michael Powell.

An interesting mix of background characters - the quirky old crone caretaker, the golden hearted young king (a student), hormone gushing Jean Simmons (another student), the dark-hearted "evil" nun. All the while, the REAL background player is the location . . . the wind blown high mountain and surreal convent building, and the beating drums at night. All in beautiful technicolor with the score performed by the London Symphony. Despite the sensual overtones, there is no reason a child couldn't watch this.

A thoughtful study of the struggle between the spirit and the flesh. Are the sisters successful at establishing their mission on the mountain? I won't ruin it for you. A wonderful, wonderful piece of filmmaking.

5/5 A stunning visual feast heavy with symbolic meaning
  by Nathan T. Parker (San Francisco, CA United States)
Above all, this is beautifully shot picture where every frame is carefully composed ... and the results are nothing short of amazing. Usually, technicolour films tend to come off as oversaturated and garish, but the colour here is carefully controlled to great effect. Every shot is mesmerizing and leaden with symbolic meaning. Ultimately, this film is about spiritual ideals versus the reality of the natural world; which, by comparison, is never so tidy.
Every scene reinforces the idea that both religious faith and obsessive romantic love are both similar forms of madness which play out their inextricable dance against the impassive backdrop of the natural world.

This is a film whose eternal themes are backed by classical images charged with subtext - an enchantingly sophisticated and literate work of art pulled off with great subtlety.

5/5 Simmering repressed emotions as painted with colour
  by Mr. Stephen Kennedy (Doha, Qatar)
Powell and Pressburger in the 40's were a sure fire guarantee of cinema that was imaginative, innovative and involving - and this was one of the pinnacles of their career.
On the surface another British melodrama, this was made into much more, using the relatively new and cumbersome Technicolor process for heretofore unimagined uses. While America was using colour as a way of making musicals and location work bigger and more exciting, Powell and Pressburger were finding ways of using it as a way of expressing the internal - emotions as colour.
In this movie, we have Deborah Kerr as a nun who has been sent as Mother Superior to a palace (and former harem) in India in the shadow of the Himalayas to make of it a school and dispensary. However the location and its otherworldliness begin to gnaw at the nuns in different ways, digging up old forgotten memories of their previous lives, and forcing one all the way to madness. The presence of the Englishman who is their only source of help, only adds to a simmering atmosphere of repressed emotion which threatens to burst out as time progresses.
As a melodrama this might seem a little dated by modern viewers eyes, however as an expression of the dichotomy between our human nature and the nature of religion (in this case Christianity) this is a fascinating and timeless piece - and as a piece of cinema, this will stay with you for a very long time, with its stunning expressionist style and startling colours. One moment, when a nun drive made appears in a doorway with murderous thoughts in mind, is more chilling than anything I have seen in a long time, all captured in one look through fantastic lighting. The achievements in creating such a vivid and authentic atmosphere are all the more amazing considering it was all shot in Pinewood studios.
Jack Hawkins won an Oscar for his photography, and the extra documentary on his pioneering use of Technicolor shows how he was guided by an admiration not for the technical side but for the artistry, quoting Vermeer, Van Gogh and Rembrandt as influences in his technique. Fascinating. The feature on the film itself necessarily covers some of the same ground, but is also worth watching.
Whether you simply enjoy a good melodrama, or are a student of cinema as art, or just like to keep up with movies Scorcese recommends, this is worth watching. Despite its age, *****.


4/5 "Everything is exaggerated"
  by Amaranth (Northern California)
"Black Narcissus" was Michael Powell's ambitious 1946 work set in the Himalayas... but filmed entirely on a soundstage. It's an impressive cinematic achievement, before the days of CIG and Industrial Light&Magic. "Black Narcissus" is the story of a group of Anglican nuns in India trying to deal with each other,as well as their own desires. Their convent is housed in a former harem,"The Women's Palace",living their vow of chastity surrounded by erotic Tantric murals.

Deborah Kerr is splendid as strong-willed Sr. Clodagh,who left Ireland in humiliation after her fiance abandoned her. She is brilliant as a stubborn nun trying to keep the world in order as it falls to pieces around her. David Farrar stars as Mr. Dean, who's Austin Powers-like in his vulgarity&frequent hairy chest-baring. Despite the fact he's homely& has a woolly chest,he becomes an obscure object of desire for the repressed,bitter&slightly paranoid Sr. Ruth (Kathleen Byron)

In the meantime, the General (former child star Sabu) comes to the Servants of Mary for an education. He asks Sr. Clodagh that the "mathematics be taught by the mathematical sister,French&Russian taught by the French&Russian sister,and physics by the physical sister." The last phrase visibly discomfits Sr. Clodagh. He also wants to become Christian. She tells him that Jesus "came in the shape of a man",showing not only is she repressed&has issues,but she's a closet Gnostic. To make matters worse, the General's Black Narcissus cologne inflames the repressed nuns. The village harlot,Kanchi (Jean Simmons),meanwhile,dances around a lot with shiny bling in her nostrils&ears. She shimmies her way into the General's heart.

The Sr. Clodagh/ Sr. Ruth/ Mr. Dean love triangle comes to a shattering climax in many ways... and it involves Sr. Ruth wearing red&maniacally putting on red lipstick. The ending is memorable.

"Black Narcissus" is a visual masterpiece;Kerr's acting stands out. It's lush. To quote Mr. Dean, "everything is exaggerated." It's bright,beautiful,and campy. It's the Servants of Melodrama,not the Servants of Mary. Campy,overwrought&visually sensual,"Black Narcissus" is a masterpiece in its own riveting, over-the-top way.

In "Black Narcissus",