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Rating:  - Eroticism you can feel but can't necessarily see
If you're looking for a trashy nun tale, checkout Images in a Convent by Joe D'Amato. It has the visually sexual depictions and nudity that will rev your engine. But Black Narcissus is an elegantly crafted and mesmerizing nun story that spouts off highly-charged sexual tones--it kind of teases and coaxes you with the whole "less is more" technique.
In this movie there is a frequent contrast of red. There is something about a beautiful nun dressed in black and white wearing red lipstick. It's hard to take your eyes off of her and not indulging in certain fantasies.
Colors play an important part throughout this movie. Very well shot. The overall premise is that several nuns try to establish a convent in the Himalayas, and there is trouble from outside and from within. Some man tries to probe his way inside, if you know what I mean. Plus there is jealousy, insecurities, and anger boiling amongst the sisters. This all builds a steady tension that erupts during the climax, an impressive outburst that will blow you away. Overall, this is a beautiful work of art.
Rating:  - An over-the-top treasure from the past
I first saw this movie on late-night TV and was entranced by its weirdness and eroticism. It's a really odd story but so beautifully rendered it's impossible to turn away from it. The acting is sometimes a little stilted and stagey (Sister Ruth's a bit hysterical, the Indian Prince is strange, the little Indian boy is kind of annoying, and Jean Simmons as an Indian??), but it doesn't really bother me because the whole movie is really over-the-top, but in a good way. It's unreal and dreamlike, which is a perfect setting for the story. I've seen it many times and never get tired of it. It's not for everybody - I tried to get my husband to watch it with me and he couldn't get into it at all. I like odd movies - most movies never get weird enough for me - but this one did. If you like Powell/Pressburger's "Red Shoes" you'll probably like this one too. It's definitely worth checking out just for the visuals (and David Farrar, who as far as I can tell didn't do much else but sure is one sexy beast here) and for a really different, interesting movie experience. (I also recommend the book - the movie's almost a carbon copy of it.)
Rating: - Lose a star for technical and academic ineptitude !
As others have pointed out, at about the 88 minute point on Criterion's edition, when Ruth's fury is so intense she literally sees red and the screen is doused in scarlet, what should then be the punctuating fade to black in fact goes to a freeze of bright blue. One reviewer has suggested that this is likely because the black reads as 'no signal', but then again, Powell & Pressburger use the fade-to-black throughout the picture as a sort of cinematic swoon, as if the camera itself is fainting dead away as the lush fever-dream overtakes the protagonists - so why at this key point are we suddenly jolted by blue ? It breaks into the carefully built mood of the movie, like a slap around the face in the middle of an intense tone poem. I wonder if this is the point where the transition on the dual-layer disc was placed? The blame really must lie with Criterion - at these prices they should be offering better technical quality control. And my other beef is that the dubious "essay" accompanying this edition, by David Kehr, states that Sister Clodagh is from Scotland ... then refers to "Scottish" flashbacks - but she's Irish (Clodagh,the name itself, is pretty much a giveaway, even without paying attention to the dialogue). Her memories are of Ireland, a location that has suffered a great deal through the centuries as a sort of Ground Zero of British (and please note BRITISH, not English) imperial aspirations, and thus another subtle resonance of which Powell was surely well aware (and regarding the Irish religio-political conflict, other viewers have not missed the error on the DVD box synopsis; the nuns are not "Protestant" as stated, and it's not clear why whoever compiles these synopses thinks they are). What is it with Criterion's 3rd rate "academics" and their commentaries and essays - on Powell's 'Peeping Tom', "renowned film theorist" (oh dear) Laura Mulvey thinks that Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde was written by someone called "John Louis Stevenson". Who, at Criterion, is approving this under-educated nonsense lurking in the self-important guise of "film theory"?
Rating: - The Best Laid Plans . . .Gang Aft Aglay
Since so many others here have noted Criterion's inexcusable presentation of the 'cut' version of this movie in this DVD, I will not waste time on the issue except to join my disgusted protests to theirs, and move on to reviewing the film itself.
"Black Narcissus" is another offering from the Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger team, who were behind the famed "The Archers" studio, and the creators of such legendary films as "The Red Shoes", "The Thief of Baghdad", "Stairway to Heaven", "I Know Where I'm Going", and "The Life and Times of Colonel Blimp".
"Black Narcissus", while having its own distinct character, nevertheless shows its shared lineage with those films, notably the extraordinary cinematic gifts of Jack Cardiff, the attention to tight scripting and character development, the talents of composer Brian Easdale, a stable of familiar performers, and, most of all, emphasis on the power of thwarted desire to mow down the moral or intellectual barriers placed in its way.
Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) is a young Anglican nun at the convent of the Servants of Mary in Calcutta. Sr. Clodagh entered the religious life after a romantic disappointment that humiliated her, as she felt, before her family and community. When she discovers that the man she had thought loved her and intended to marry her only viewed her as a friend, she flees to the convent, leaving behind a privileged position among the landed gentry in Scotland. Sr. Clodagh is intelligent, competent, and as intent on succeeding in the religious life as she once was on marrying the man she had chosen.
Clodagh's superiors are aware of what they view as her major flaw, a will to power. It is, therefore, with some anxiety that they put Clodagh in charge of taking a group of sisters up to a poor village in the Himalayas, and there setting up a new mission, to be called St. Faith, in a former rajah's decrepit palace. The sisters are to make friends with the community, offer schooling and medical help to the village, all with an eye, of course, to converting the heathens eventually. The old rajah's grandson, played by Sabu, has offered them the use of the palace for this purpose, in hopes of becoming more educated and westernized himself.
The sisters takes up occupancy in the old palace, which once housed the rajah's concubines. Besides Clodagh, there is Sr. "Honey", the nursing sister, who is cheerful and practical; Sr. Ruth, who is tense and angry, and who already resents Clodagh's authority; and the older, gardening sister (Flora Robson).
Almost immediately, Discord arrives in the form of Mr. Dean (David Farrar), the free spirit who guides the nuns up the mountain to the palace and is to act as their liaison with the outside world. Cynical, irreligious, and virile, he tries to warn Clodagh about the "atmosphere" of their exotic new surroundings, but Clodagh will have none of it. Dean immediately attracts the notice of Sr. Ruth, whose vows clearly have not dampened her romantic or erotic imagination, nor her jealousy of Clodagh, who she suspects Dean of admiring.
From the moment the nuns arrive and set up housekeeping, the natural world, which seems to be powerfully animated with a consciousness of its own, (the film's title refers to the heavy scent of a local flower), begins to undermine Clodagh's task. The rajah's young grandson, with the best intentions, cannot conceal his interest in a pupil/servant, a beautiful and libidinous young girl (Jean Simmons) who is far more interested in attaching the young prince than learning arithmetic or sweeping floors. She wears scanty clothing, scented flowers in her black hair, a ring in her nose, bracelets and anklets, and flaunts her blooming sexuality at every turn.
The Himalayan winds blowing through the large palace and bringing in the scent of exotic flowers, the vast distances the nuns can see from every vantage point of their clifftop dwelling, the earthier mores of the surrounding culture - all combine to reawaken long-banished memories and distract the nuns from their task. A village child dies despite the ministrations of Sr. Honey, and the gardening sister finds that without knowing it, she has planted flowers instead of vegetables.
Most alarming, as Sr. Clodagh senses her authority, her mastery of life, and her will to succeed again being thwarted by emotional tides that she cannot control, she is also faced with the deteriorating mental state of Sr. Ruth, now completely obsessed with Dean and the undercurrent she thinks she detects between him and Sr. Clodagh.
At last the atmospheric and character-driven tensions build to a tragic climax that forces the nuns to leave the place in defeat, and Sr. Clodagh to confront her willful pride. However, it is a softer, more mature, less rigid Sr. Clodagh who returns to the convent in disgrace - it is clear that her failure represents a crucial step toward a more authentic embrace of her vocation, and the beginning of wisdom.
The outline of this story is just that: outline. To understand why the film is held in such esteem, it must be experienced. Jack Cardiff shot the entire film on a soundstage in London - an unbelievable achievement when one sees how he managed to reproduce not only the look, but the feel and sense of the Himalayas and their vast distances. The performances, as one might expect, are magnificent, particularly Deborah Kerr as Sr. Clodagh and Kathleen Byron as Sr. Ruth, the opposing points of consciousness in the exotic world in which they are shut up together. The film is driven not by how it gets to its outcome, but by its observations on the consequences of repressing self-knowledge, whether carnal or spiritual.
Once seen, "Black Narcissus" will never be forgotten.
Rating: - Black Narcissus
Another great success for "Red Shoes" helmers Powell-Pressburger, "Narcissus" is an absorbing, finely acted British melodrama about the secular problems facing a new mother superior in an unfamiliar, potentially hostile new environment. The directors even stirred controversy by developing a subtle yet credible sexual tension between the luminous Kerr and hunky Farrar. Jack Cardiff's Oscar-winning Technicolor photography and Alfred Junge's hand-crafted art design give this film exceptional production values to boot. And Kathleen Byron's celebrated turn as the unhinged Sister Ruth climaxes in a suspenseful sequence that's hard to forget.
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