Day 91: Black Narcissus (1947)

The Himalayas, home to the world’s highest mountains and some of the most beautiful scenery known to man. With its icy peaks and lush landscape, it is an odd mixture of biomes, almost contrasting in many ways, and the perfect setting for a story of reserved religious dignity facing vibrantly charged exotic emotion. With “Black Narcissus,” the directing and writing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who went on to make the Oscar winning “The Red Shoes” a year later, brought together a film that Powell would later call the most erotic picture of his career and one that holds as a perfect example of the destruction that occurs when cultures clash into one another at full speed.

In the film, a group of Nuns, lead by Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), travel to a remote palace in the Himalayas to set up a school and hospital, hoping to help civilize the local people and their environment. But, instead of creating peace and tranquility, the group find themselves seduced by their surroundings.

For Sister Clodagh, the memories of a failed romance back home in Ireland begin to weigh heavy on her soul and the presence of the handsome local British agent Mr. Dean (David Farrar) does not help her forget the love she has lost. As tensions mount between the village people and the convent, Sister Clodagh, Mr. Dean, and the other Nuns find themselves in a whirlwind of danger, both from the culture they’ve tried to change and passions that each can barely contain in themselves.

With “Black Narcissus,” Powell and Pressburger created a film that looks deep into the conflict found when one ideology tries to force itself, not just on a culture, but an entire reality. As the nuns move into their new living quarters, an ancient palace, once the home of royal harems, the camera pans across several paintings on the walls depicting the sexually charged lifestyle of the past and it becomes quickly clear just how in opposition these woman are to village’s natural way of life. But it is in this heated tension that the film finds its excitement and, though it never becomes explicit, it is the idea of what could happen if either side were to give in that keeps us always at the edge of our seats.

With this sort of conflict of cultures, there are certain things that stand out in the film as excellent representations of how each side presses against the other. When it comes to the local natives, a holy man, who sits uninterrupted on the mountain day and night, is certainly a thorn in the convents side as he represents an unmoving tradition, which neither seems to want to see or hear any suggestions of change. In fact, when Sister Clodagh finds that the holy man is technically camped on the outskirts of her church’s property, she tells the fact to Mr. Dean who simply quips, “He was here first.” And it’s true- the holy man and his culture were certainly here well before the nuns arrived to change them.

But, even with years of tradition holding up the structure of this small Himalayan village, the Nuns and Western civilization are still slowly crawling in and making an impression. Take, for example, the object for which the film gains it’s title- a perfume called “Black Narcissus,” that the young local prince in the film sprays himself with regularly. It is a product he imports all the way from England at great expense and for what? To impress the locals? Hardly. “Don’t you think it’s rather common to smell of ourselves?” the Prince questions Sister Clodagh. A rather westernized idea from a culture where its elders sit on a mountain in threadbare robes.

A tale of beauty and desire, “Black Narcissus” is a film much like the perfume its named after- a wonderful experience for the senses that lingers with you well after you’ve enjoyed it.

To learn more about “Black Narcissus,” check out Criterion’s page here.

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