Submitted by
Dibyaduti Purkayastha (Tipu)
Black Narcissus (1946)
From "The 100 Best Films To Rent You've Never Heard Of"
By: David N. Meyer
One of the all-time greats; a film that every film-buff must see at least
twice; a psychological drama with a romantic subplot; a study in the symbolic
power of color, shadow, light & form. BN communicates a different but equally
powerful message to children, to adults, to men, & to women. If this book
induces you to rent only one film you never heard of, let it be BN.
Director Michael Powell & screenwriter Emeric Pressburger worked under the
production name 'The Archers'. Their distinctive combination of literate,
European perversity & lyrically flowing narrative places them in no tradition
but their own. Structuralists par excellence, the Archers' pictures feature
a traditional, elegant construction. In a career of wilfully intelligent,
deliberately subtle, psychologically complex, & finely crafted pictures,
this is their most profound, most multilevelled work. Its also one of the
most beautiful movies ever made, & won Oscars for Best Cinematography &
Production design. For cinematic poetry, emotions, sets, use of colour,
classic acting, & dramatic impact, it can't be beat.
Deborah Kerr leads a group of nuns to an abandoned palace high in the Indian
Himalayas, intending to create a hospital & a school for the local villagers.
Once there, they find the atmosphere strangely dislocating. The local people
reject civilisation with a shrug of their shoulders; their joy in a sensual
pagan life further disarms the nuns. Kerr finds herself recalling, with
intrusive passion, life & love in the Scottish village of her birth.
[It was an Irish village]
Other
nuns shirk their duties, or find themselves cast into reverie at the sight
of an Indian prince's silk tunic. They experience difficulty tending to
their responsibilities after a lifetime of little else. Kerr in particular
is frightened to find herself so easily distracted.
Appearing like a genie, as the very incarnation of their forbidden erotic
(though not always sexual) longing is David Farrar, who plays the local
English colonial authority. Farrar, a leading man of the relaxed, deep-voiced
school, finds himself falling for Kerr & she, though she cannot admit it,
for him. Farrar plays a man accustomed to following his instincts, & Kerr
frustrates him terribly. Another nun, Sister Ruth, more sensitive to her
own longings & oppressed by the repressions surrounding her, goes mad. As
Sister Ruth - played by the ravishing Kathleen Byron - loses her connection
with the world of religion she becomes increasingly menacing, beautiful,
& sexual.
The Archers create a tragic consideration of the erotic power of memory,
of the perverse nature of love, and, depending on your perspective, of either
the horror of a life wasted in worship or the noble sacrrifices required
therefore. They present an implicit debate on the relative merits of
civilisation vs primitivism, of acting-out versus repression, & of reason
versus emotion.
The Archers consider these issues with the gravity they warrant, & yet produce
a coherent, commercial drama driven by a compelling love story. They raise
no question, however serious, without a light touch & dashing wit.
The story operates powerfully on both the conscious level - a tale of nuns
dealing with the loss of faith & direction - & on the unconscious - the
battle against memory, the lure of self- destruction, & the oppressive safety
of duty. The Archers use color & shadow to represent emotion; their ability
to place their characters in a frame to illustrate one character's relationship
to another is unmatched; they shift from past to present as if in a dream
& call upon a veritable storehouse of Jungian, Freudian, symbolist, & poetic
imagery.
A complex work of art & an enduring piece of entertainment.
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