I can't get into opera - too overwrought and stilted in action for me, never mind the strained singing. But "Black Narcissus" connects to me the way I imagine classic opera does to its devotees - but without the vocals to distract me. This movie is high art in conception and delivery, a searing cauldron of hidden emotions, desires, even lust, the latter portrayed unforgettably in Kathleen Bryon's tortured character, riven by an impossible love for the maverick David Ferrar character, himself drawn to the self - sacrificing Deborah Kerr character as Sister Superior Clodagh. All the nuns of the order are repressing something, from maternal instincts in one, love of nature in another, culminating in the contrast from Sister Clodagh's own haunted memories of her thwarted young love to, of course, Bryon's barely controlled passion which ultimately leads to her own death and communal defeat for the sisterhood as the nuns wind their way back down the hill at the film's conclusion. Director Powell prefigures each major section of the film with scenes of changes in the seasons, with the budding of spring leading ultimately to an explosion of passion in Bryon's character which ends in disaster. The casting is unusual - Kerr & Bryon do seem too young and for want of a better term (no offence meant to nuns worldwide) attractive for their parts, while there's an early part for Jean Simmons as an errant native girl who successfully, Salome - like, ensnares the general's young son played by Sabu, in a counterpoint to Bryon's attempted seduction of Ferrar. Memorable scenes come in waves - Powell presenting scenes reminiscent of Oriental and Indian tableaux in lurid colour utilising huge angular, shadowed close ups of his leads betraying their inner feelings. Ultimately it's the justly famous arousal of Sister Ruth which lingers longest in the memory, take your pick from her scene making up her face opposite the chaste Kerr, her eerie looming before Kerr by the bell climaxing of course in their fateful struggle at the bell tower. Unreal and highly stylised it may be, but for me this as engrossing and beautiful as cinema gets.
Review of Black Narcissus
