Black Narcissus (1947)
Black Narcissus Photos
Movie Info
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Cast
as Sister Clodagh
as Dilip Rai
as Mr. Dean
as Sister Philippa
as Kanchi
as Gen. Toda Rai
as Sister Ruth
as Sister Honey
as Sister Briony
as Angu Ayah
as Joseph Anthony
as Angu Ayah
as Con
as Joseph Anthony
as Mother Dorothea
as Phuba
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Critic Reviews for Black Narcissus
All Critics (29) | Top Critics (7) | Fresh (29) | Rotten (0) | DVD (5)
This is a landmark of Hollywood-on-Thames trompe-l'oeil.
There's something truly unearthly about this place of howling winds, yawning chasms and atmosphere thick with temptation. Sanctity, it will be proven, is no match for sin.
Powell's equally extravagant visual style transforms it into a landscape of the mind -- grand and terrible in its thorough abstraction.
Production has gained much through being in color. The production and camerawork atone for minor lapses in the story, Jack Cardiff's photography being outstanding.
Theatre this Michael Powell film most certainly is, as stressed by the gothic melodrama of the story and the acting, the studio setting with its beautiful backdrops and vivid colours and the most deliberate of characters and events.
While Messrs. Powell and Pressburger may have a picture that will disturb and antagonize some, they also have in Black Narcissus an artistic accomplishment of no small proportions.
Audience Reviews for Black Narcissus
In rugged outback In-juh, a handful of pious British nuns lean to their work amongst the sweaty, heathen native hordes, only the climate, the people, the atmosphere, and A MAN, all combine to insidiously fragment the constitutions of these seeking only the Lord's good work. Surprisingly filmed entirely in England in lustrous Technicolor, this adds little to the coliseum of opinion that going native is ultimately maddening, but does make for riveting entertainment nonetheless. Simmons and Sabu simmer showing subtle, subordinate, savage seduction.
Super Reviewer
Quite an amazing film - especially considering it was filmed in a studio 65 years ago using painted backdrops to represent the panoramic Himalayas. Even the topic is refreshing - not all goes according to plan even for nuns.
Super Reviewer
Nuns on a mountain? Heck yes! Glorious technicolor mountains (colored in with pastel chalks, according to IMDB) where a veritable fortress hides in the Himalayas. The sisters are sent there to administer medicine to the local population (although the local population is highly superstitious of them). The only friend they have waiting there for them is Mr. Dean (David Farrar), assistant to the General. Ironically, this "palace" was originally built to house the original General's many wives (and now it houses the brides of Christ). It's not long before the isolation begins playing at the minds of the nuns and they begin to have doubts of faith. The technicolor illusions created in this film were said to be inspired by the dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, and the amazingly vivid and colorful backdrops are almost worth the price of admission alone. The film is practically a painting come to life. The story of the nuns is amusing and sometimes frightening and directed with a real flair by writers/directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It is deservedly one of the top films of it's decade.
Super Reviewer
Black Narcissus Quotes
| Sister Clodagh: | We all need discipline. You said it yourself they're like children. Without discipline we should all behave like children. |
| Mr. Dean: | Don't you like children, sister? |
| Sister Clodagh: | [to Mr. Dean] You are objectionable when you are sober and abominable when drunk! |
| Old General: | Do you see that crate? Sausages! They will eat sausages. Europeans eat sausages wherever they go. |