Review of Black Narcissus (1947) by Laura H — 15 Jul 2009

To give this movie a brief comment is that this movie is indeed so beautiful in every scenery and the plot is really impressive. I know this movie was based on the Rumer Goddenâ??s original novel, even I havenâ??t read it; I can imagine how good it is.

The story is brilliant; I adore its way of expounding some serious ideas.

The under screen plot is easily been understand and full of wisdom in it. At first, we can analyze the main character into four layers. The first layer of people is the white man, Dr. Dean as a rescuer. He is the leading role who never do things wrong and always help out others. The second layers are white women who serve god, the nuns, but they are in the dilemma in mind while serving god and practicing moral teachings. And it is the core of this film. The third layer is the local leader, the young general. He has great power and elegant attitude, and also willing to learn. However, nuns never ask him for help, in contrast, itâ??s young general who always wants to learn western knowledge and ask nuns to teach him. Nevertheless, young general is the trigger of nunsâ?? desire of love and sex; he is the role who makes these nuns out of control. In the end, the young general was kicking out from the palace of western knowledge because of the seduction of local young woman, he fell from virtue. The lowest layer is local women. A crazy manager of palace, Ayah; a lustful girl and all the other rude and uneducated women, they are all symbolizing the bad image of aboriginal women. Although the surface layer is as I mentioned above, but actually the effect between them is from bottom to top besides the first status of Dr. Dean. Nuns are influenced by young general and young general is influenced by young local woman. In addition, nuns are also influenced by Dr. Dean. We audience can easily find out both Sister Ruth and Sister Clodagh were attracted by Dr. Dean. Sister Ruth going mad at the end of the movie, her changing is quite astonishing and I like her acting very much. Sister Clodagh is the leading actress, she acted also very well. She faced a lot of contradiction and struggling while she taking the leadership of school.

Dr. Dean is one who let out her emotions which had been suppressed for a long time, such as her romance before she been nun. Those of desire of sex all let out in the palace. Since this place was built for extravagance. Sometimes we can think it as the ghost of those concubines of old general are playing nuns. In addition, there is contrast between lustful wives and innocent nuns.

Black Narcissus is famous of its beautiful color picture. In that time, itâ??s really a hard work to shoot as vivid as that. The most impressing shot is the vivid contrast between Sister Ruth in red and Sister Clodagh in white. What an amazing shot! I really think itâ??s very very beautiful. About the light and shadows, I think the photographer is brilliant, he controlled them very well. This film is really an art, a master piece in film history.