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Summary: AN ENTHRALLING AND HYPNOTIC MASTERPIECE
Review: I first saw this film as a kid on a black and white tv, and even in black and white it was mesmerizingly beautiful and totally seductive. In color it is pure perfection! Everything that could be said about the art direction, the cinematography, direction, etc. has already been said. Every character was perfectly cast (no one mentioned the very young Jean Simmons as the beautiful and seductive Indian girl). If you've never seen it, please add it to your collection now! It will remain in your psyche for a long time.
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Summary: Can't wait to recieve the DVD version!!!
Review: I remember seeing this movie 36 years ago on an old black and white TV and it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I saw it in all its remastered color. What a feast for the eyes and on a huge screen television it is visually stunning. Sister Ruth would have to be one of my all time favorite movie nutcases and I just lov Deborah Kerr in the flashback scenes with her long flaming red hair and flawless beauty. Visually stunning and unsettling at times but a cinema masterpiece up their with the best of them....Enjoy!!!
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Summary: Powell and Pressburgers' best film!
Review: Although not as beloved as the earlier 'A Matter of Life and Death' or 'The Red Shoes', 'Black Narcissus' is undoubtedly my favourite of the legendary double act of Powell and Pressburger. It focuses on the promotion and subsequent mental breakdown of a nun, Debroah Kerr, who is sent to establish a mission in a remote Himalayian village, hanging off the edge of the mountains. The film takes place at an astonishing altitude, and the cinemtography beautifully captures the danger and wonder of their incredible height. The use of early technicolor also adds an incredible beauty to the film, which is more mesmerising than anything they did before or since. It ranks up there with 'Vertigo' as one of the best psychological mysteries even made. Sublime.
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Summary: One of my favourites of all time!
Review: One of the best British films ever made is this pioneering effort by independent filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Shot entirely in Scotland with painted matte backgrounds to recreate the Himalayas (and astonishingly well at that), the film is superbly textured and mature, thematically ahead of any movie made in its period. Deborah Kerr heads a superb group of performers as the Mother Superior of a group of nuns who move to a convent in a remote mountain village in India, only to find that their confidence and strength in their religion is no match for the mystic powers of the East. Sexual frustration over local white man David Farrar, weakening faith, harsh climate and the growing fondness for their homeland soon get to the women and they are forced to leave or die. Interestingly enough, Kerr's flashback scenes of her Scottish youth and teenage sweetheart were cut by American censors upon first release, even though they were completely without sexual content, explicit or implicit; it seems it was too taboo to show a nun who has taken her vows to escape a failed love affair (the scenes have since been restored and are now available on home video). Funny, the nun who throws herself off a mountain because she goes bug-eyed every time she sees Farrar in his shorts didn't even make the Prude Alert blink.
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Summary: The Crisp Air of the Himalayas
Review: British cinema during the post-WWII years produced a string of terrific movies, and Black Narcissus is among the most remarkable of those films. There is an eerie, sexually charged atmosphere throughout this story of five nuns sent into a remote part of the Himalayas to establish a convent and work with the locals. There's something about the air that clears their heads and allows all sorts of worldly thoughts to permeate their consciousness. The results are tragic. Deborah Kerr stars as the Sister Superior and gives yet another excellent portrait of repression and duty mixed uneasily together. As good as she might be, it's Kathleen Byron as the disturbed Sister Ruth whose performance dominates the film. Her descent into madness is chilling and Byron is nothing short of amazing in the way she physically and emotionally plays it. The cinematography is justly famous, and the direction is superb, capturing and exploiting the repressed atmosphere and increasing mental unease of the experience using great camera angles. The score also deserves mention. The sound of the howling wind runs throughout the film, and choirs of voices are used with rising intensity to create dramatic tension. Black Narcissus is unlike any movie you have seen.
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Summary: "Black Narcissus" is black magic--hypnotic and gorgeous.
Review: Michael Powell recreated the Indian Himalayas on a London soundstage for "Black Narcissus"--still an incredible feat of cinematic design. The lush, super-saturated color photography works much like the color in "Vertigo" to mesmerize viewers and draw them in to the emotional extremes of the story. 'Black Narcissus" is a brilliant study of what happens to people--in this case, a group of English nuns--when they lose their societal and emotional moorings; the result, of course, is anything but happy, so that even the seemingly mundane--i.e. Kathleen Byron applying red lipstick--becomes charged with Satanic evil. This, for my money, is Powell's greatest achievement--greater even than "The Red Shoes" or "The Thief of Bagdad."
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Summary: The perfect technicolor movie
Review: Never has a movie used technicolor so well as in this haunting tale of 5 Anglican Nuns who are invited to open a school and hospital high up in the mountains of India. Once there the sensuousness of the place causes the nuns to doubt their vocations. They try to fight it but the fox is already in the henhouse in the form of David Farrar. Probably Deborah Kerr's finest performance and Kathleen Byron as the demented Sister Ruth is outstanding.
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Summary: A real gem
Review: When we think of British films of the 1940s we usually think of either terribly stiff-upper-lipped gents on warships being stoical (while Richard Attenborough panics in the boiler room) or disappointingly unfunny comedies starring Alec Guinness. Powell and Pressburger were different, though.For a start, they favoured lurid technicolor over sober black and white, plus nearly all their films have an alarming cosmopolitanism. Their attitude to Britain and British life is a mixture of affection and sharp satire, and emotions tend not to be repressed, they bubble over with startling violence. Powell, who was English in a fairly weird way, did most of the directing, Pressburger, who was Hungarian, most of the writing, and they were co-producers. The result is an exhilarating blend of almost Elizabethan exuberance and East European intelligence. Black Narcissus is about a bunch of English nuns trying to bring Christianity to India. Gradually they start to go native; the heat, the heathenism and the sexy local administrator conspire to send the steam up their wimples. The whole ensemble cast is wondeful, and Deborah Kerr is on fine form as the mother superior, but the really startling performance is Kathleen Byron's. Byron is amazing as the sickly, irritable nun who goes totally loo-lah from sexual repression and ends up chucking in her habit for a low-cut dress. Her beautifully observed shift from tight-lipped anger to sweaty lust to hollow-eyed psychosis is easily one of the most brilliant performances in any film made before, oh, 1970 or so. It's a tragedy that Byron (one of the best, not to mention one of the most beautiful actresses of her generation) never got work as good as this again. A weird, sexy, alarming film. Scorsese is a huge Powell fan; there's a little bit of Kathleen Byron in Travis Bickle. Wonderful stuff.
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Summary: Don't miss this one!
Review: From the same team that gave us THE RED SHOES this film is a must see for those who appreciate a great story fleshed out by terrific performances in lush settings with phenomenal art direction. Made over fifty years ago BLACK NARCISSUS could be considered significantly ahead of its time in its unique use of narration, and subject. (Hint: What happens when a group of British nuns is sent from their cloistered priory to establish an infirmary/school in a palace formerly inhabited by a sultan's harem located high in the Himalayas? Watch and find out.) Atmospheric and hypnotic (shot in truly glorious technicolor), this is a movie you'll want to watch many times. Definitely one of a kind. Deborah Kerr is outstanding as Head Sister Clodagh. (With Sabu and a very young Jean Simmons in supporting roles.)
Rating: 
Summary: Very interesting
Review: If you are a Deborah Kerr fan, you'll like this dark film. Made in 1947, the film tells the story of a nun who failed in her efforts to establish a school and hospital in the Himalayas due to conflicting and sinister personalities. The scenery is great, but the editing is awful.
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