Black Narcissus 1947

 

Nuns on the run. Not actually running but landing in an abandoned palace high in the Himalayas that was once a brothel-estatefor the rich generals and rulers of the district. The nuns are there to open a school and a hospital and are led by the young head nun, Sister Clodagh played by Deborah Kerr who has her work cut out for her. The nuns are a cross section of society more or less, some wise, one or two foolish and one played by the great Kathleen Byron is totally off her nut. Byron as Sister Ruth is boiling over with repressed sexuality and desire most of it directed at the hot honcho estate manager played with rugged male beauty by David Farrer who flaunts his hairy chest and legs in shorts and sometimes no shirt.

Byron controls the movie and indeed the life of the convent and when she is on with her wild bewildered look we can’t take our eyes off of her. She is like something out of a horror movie. The climax of the film, when Byron leaves the convent in that red dress and bright red lipstick, mad with passion for a love she can never have is one of the memorable pieces of late 40’s filmmaking.

Sister Clodagh comes from a rich Irish family who left her life behind to enter the order when she was deserted  by the man she thought she would wind up marrying. Her past life is told in flashbacks where Kerr’s ravishing young beauty is shown in full force. Also in the convent is the young and beautiful Jean Simmons who plays Kanchi a simple native young girl-woman who becomes sort of a house maid to the convent. Simmons made up in brown make-up which  might offend is at the height of her young beauty is stunning. She is an erotic bundle who glides and shimmers all over the convent, getting the look and love of the young general played wonderfully by the wonderful Sabu who is costumed in extravagant clothes that contrast with the pure white habits of the nuns.

Eroticism and repressed sexuality  runs and drips all over the convent and the landscapes. Nature plays a big part in the film, rain, snow, wind and out of control foliage add to our unease and pleasure. Powell and Pressburger based their film on a novel by the stuffy writer Rumer Godden who hated their overheated take on her work and preferred the more austere and equally marvelous Renior film of her novel “The River” made a few years later.

There is also chorography in the film. The players move and glide in and out of scenes, and move through the large beautiful rooms of the estate and through our hearts and minds.

The superb look of the film is the work of Jack Cardiff the great cinematographer who won a well deserved Oscar for this film and Alfred Junge who designed the film and also won an Oscar. 

 
The film was co-directed and written  by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger who were a dynamic and dramatic team and gave us some memorable British films mostly from the post war years, and this one is to my mind is their best. The look of the film is like a dream, made out of miniatures and matte paintings to impress and beguile us. At first you would swear that the film was made in India but it was all done at Pinewood Studios with some exteriors shot in the English countryside to step in for India. The Blu Ray transfer of the film from Criterion is superb and stunning, actually its jaw dropping. Might this be the most beautiful technicolor film ever made?  I think so.  The best film of 1947.