Okay, I just watched Black Narcissus for the first time and am getting my mind around it, so this write-up might be an epic fail, but here goes...
Black Narcissus, a stunningly beautiful Technicolor feature directed by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, pitches a cinematic curve ball like nothing that I have seen in recent memory. Most of Black Narcissus plays out exactly in the way that a modern viewer might expect of a grandiose British film that features thematic undercurrents concerning imperialism, codes of conduct, and suppressed desires. When the final third of this film suddenly veers into German expressionist horror and classic Universal horror territory, however, we realize that the rigid splendor of the earlier scenes are all the more brilliant in their misdirection.
Black Narcissus was released more than a decade before the publication of Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel, The Haunting of Hill House, and the subsequent 1963 adaptation, The Haunting. I cannot help wondering if Shirley Jackson was thinking of Black Narcissus when she penned her tale of a vulnerably disturbed woman whose psyche gradually unravels upon her arrival at a mansion with a dark past. The setting of Black Narcissus, a gorgeous harem palace atop a remote mountain in the Himalayas that Anglican nuns wish to convert to a convent community, is nowhere near as ominous as the mansion that Shirley Jackson would later describe in her novel, but the location has a similar effect of reminding us that ambitious wishes of people to change the culture and aura of a physical place can often result in the corrosion of their own psychological armor. As the nuns, led by the radiant Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), encounter misinterpretation of their benevolent intentions by the locals, physical illness reactions to their new home, distractions to their duties by way of the very beauty of their surroundings, and unexpected sexual tensions brought about by the presence of memorable male characters, we sense that the clean natural air and the plethora of colorful exuberance of the palace will not easily be transformed into an establishment befitting of concentration and devout work ethic. Without revealing too much of the outcome, I will go so far as to say that I cannot possibly imagine a better double feature movie night than the pairing of Black Narcissus and The Haunting. Of course, Black Narcissus, based on a novel by Rumer Godden, may have very well subtly drawn several of its own cues from Joseph Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness.
Many viewers may find certain aspects of the production of Black Narcissus to give the movie a forced feel by today's standards. We have a Pinewood Studios location standing in as the gorgeous mountaintop convent by way of matte paintings and ingenious camera work, we have a handful of Caucasian actors portraying India locals, and we have a few obvious imperialist allegories, such as a child character teaching the English names of warfare instruments to a class. In my eyes, however, these aspects of Black Narcissus only serve to strengthen the film's underlying themes about the struggle of trying to mold external surroundings to fit our own rigid value systems.
Black Narcissus, with all its Technicolor wonder, looks ravishing on this Criterion Blu-ray. The mountaintop convent looks believable down to every detail. One unforgettable moment with a character applying lipstick is presented in sharp close-ups to give us one of the most unnerving, but incredibly erotic, sequences in cinema. The generous supplements shed light on the fascinating story of the production of Black Narcissus, and demonstrate the film's influence on filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, whose appreciation of this movie can be sensed in almost every frame of his own underrated 2010 movie, Shutter Island.
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