Review of Black Narcissus (1947) by Al M — 04 Aug 2010

Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus is a beautiful example of technicolor flimmaking that transports the audience to a castle perched on cliffside in the mountainous terrain of India. Here, a group of nuns has taken over a former pleasure palace and converted it into a school, hospital, and pharmacy for the locals who live in the village that the cliff overlooks. Even with its use of sound stages, matte paintings, and white actors made up to appear Indian, Black Narcissus manages to create a beautiful, otherworldly cinematic space in which the darkest of human thoughts and emotions percolate and boil over.

Its high altitude, howling winds, holy men in trances, and superstitious locals create a pressure cooker of thought and emotion for the poor sisters. These stoical women who belong to an order that glorifies work attempt to bring order to the castle through their labor, faith, and devotion to duty, but slowly their pasts before entering the sisterhood, their desires for a hyper-masculine local Englishman, and the oppressive manner of their chosen lifestyle become too much. Contrasted with the beautiful vibrant colors of the technicolor exterior, Black Narcissus plunges steadily into deepest, darkest depths of the human psyche to explore who has the fortitude to survive coming face to face with their true nature, desires, and thoughts. Black Narcissus is a powerful film facing our t is demons, recognizing our denials, and owning our desires. In other words, it is a film about being human and the various oppressive institutions that attempt to put us at odds with our inner natures.