Le narcisse noir

Deborah Kerr is designated to establish a convent in the Himalayas at a remote cliffside dwelling, a palace of dubious origin. She takes her assignment seriously and faces strange customs and unfamiliar peoples as well as a harsh climate. There are inner struggles as well, and Kerr is excellent at revealing these. Huge closeups reveal what her character is supposedly thinking as she peers at others, often in unspoken disapproval of their actions, particularly David Farrar, Jean Simmons (as an Indian girl), and Kathleen Byron--who gives the film's most urgent performance as the distraught nun with worldly pleasures on her mind. Kerr gives a faultless performance, the mainstay of the film, since most of the story is seen from her viewpoint.

The striking color photography and set decoration were rightfully awarded Oscars. A haunting, powerful study of the effects of loneliness and isolation on a group of nuns--and what happens when one of them goes beserk. The struggle between the two nuns at the bell tower is one of the most gripping climaxes ever. A richly detailed British film with a windswept atmosphere all its own.

Group of Anglican nuns are sent to the Himalayans to start a convent/school/hospital in an old palace which used to be a House of Ill Repute. Quickly, the strange locale, the constant winds, and the appearances of a strapping handyman sends two of the sisters to distraction. Gripping drama from Powell and Pressburger has moments of sly humor, incredible beauty. Some of the close-ups (as when Sister Superior Deborah Kerr remembers fox-hunting in her youth, or when Sister Ruth discloses her desires of the flesh) are fascinating, almost surreal, and the finale is a wind-whipping frenzy of emotional overload. A few characters--such as Sabu's General and Jean Simmons' young tart--are not expanded upon and simply evaporate, but the film is still a stunner, depicting need and survival with colorful, melodramatic flourish. ***1/2 from ****

This spellbinding movie from that spellbinding film-making team (Powell and Pressburger) is another entry in the long line of literary and film stories that revolve around British restraint and repression unraveling under the force of mysterious foreign cultures (usually Eastern and frequently Indian), and it's one of the best.

A group of nuns travel to the Himalayas to do missionary work among the natives, but instead find themselves coming under the mystical spell of the place and people around them. Deborah Kerr is stunning as the head nun, who's determined to maintain order and British civility at all costs. I still can't decide whether this or "The Innocents" (1961) gave her her best role. At the other extreme is Kathleen Byron's Sister Ruth, who renounces her vows, paints her lips bright red, and engages in a fierce battle of wills with Kerr. What follows is a film that is surprisingly sexual, erotic and wild.

Powell and Pressburger are experts at using color. Instead of employing their Technicolor to simply make their film look pretty, the color almost becomes a character in itself, creating a feverish, hyper-realistic glow to the film. Legendary cameraman Jack Cardiff is responsible for the sterling and Oscar-winning cinematography. Equally stunning is the art direction, which created very realistic mountains out of papier-mache.

A simply sensational film, one that holds up completely and could be watched again and again. This and "Out of the Past" vie in my esteem for best film released in 1947.

Grade: A+

The story concerns a group of nuns opening a new convent school/health clinic high in the Indian Himalayas. The high altitude, the native people, and the mountain vistas, have profound effects on the woman, and each, in their own way, begins to question their commitment to their chosen life. The performances are good, though somewhat typical in that rather dry, post-war kind of way. Kathleen Byron makes a very modern attempt to create a startling and unusually frank image of female sexuality. Her quick kiss of Mr. Dean's hand as he evicts her from his home is part childish defiance, part serpent's bite, and is just one of the many highlights of her performance. The 70-year-old May Hallat is also note-worthy, creating a bizarre and thoroughly original character in the form of the servant Angu Ayah.

The movie's true stars however are production designer Alfred Junger and cinematographer, the legendary Jack Cardiff. Junger manages to create a vivid and hallucinatory vision of northern India on an English sound stage. The interiors of the crumbling palace, with their intricately carved screens and painted murals, are beautiful, and the courtyards, full of goats and chickens caught in the howling winds, convey an incredible air of authenticity. With a Technicolor camera, nobody ever really knew exactly how the developed film would look. All you could hope for was that a gifted cinematographer and a Technicolor consultant could twiddle those little dials in just the right way so as to alter the light spectrum and burn vibrant reds and haunting indigo onto the film forever. The virtual alchemy of the process, the unexpected serendipity, is what lends this film its excitement, and Cardiff's Oscar win is one of the most deserved in the Academy's history.

An amazing visual feast, that while lacking in strong performances, teaches us much of the bravery, science, craft and artistry of vintage cinema.

Having enjoyed the recent release of Jean Renoir's "The River" on the Criterion Collection DVD, I was looking forward to seeing this film adaptation of yet another exotically set Rumer Godden book. As it turns out, this 1947 classic is far more enthralling thanks to the visionary film-making team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, an intriguing plot line focused on the conflict between devotion and desire and a sterling cast headed by 26-year old Deborah Kerr as Sister Clodagh, a precursor to her similarly themed work in "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison" ten years later.

The beautifully photographed movie tells an unusual tale of Anglican nuns who establish a convent in an extremely remote region of the Himalayas called Mopu. Chosen in Calcutta by her Mother Superior, Sister Clodagh becomes the Sister Superior, one of the youngest ever chosen, of the convent. Her primary task is a daunting one, to convert a donated sultan's palace into a convent, transforming it from a residence for concubines to a school and a hospital. The terrain, 9,000-foot elevation and climate all prove challenging, and physical problems are compounded by ensuing health issues and the decline in overall morale, the result of the invariable conflict between the sensuality of the environment and the regimented order of the nuns' lives.

Each sister reacts differently and manages their inner turmoil in different ways. Matters come to a head with the arrival of three outsiders - a cynical, agnostic Brit, Mr. Dean, who sparks unholy feelings among the sisters; the son of the General who bestowed the gift of the palace, hungry for education from the nuns; and Kanchi, an exotic native girl who is unruly and in need of male attention. The film's title refers to an exotic perfume, worn by the General's son, which clouds the air around their mission and consequently redirects the thoughts of the sisters to the world they were supposed to leave behind. All their lives collide in ways that lead to tragic consequences.

The hallmark of this movie is the lush cinematography by Jack Cardiff, who did similar duties on "The African Queen". Amazingly, the film makes extensive use of matte paintings and large scale landscape paintings (the artwork is by Peter Ellenshaw) to suggest the mountainous environment of the Himalayas. The cast is mostly quite effective. In one of her first starring roles, Kerr is superb as Sister Clodagh, providing the right shadings to her conflict-ridden character. However, it is Kathleen Byron (who looks eerily like Cate Blanchett) as the deranged Sister Ruth and a 17-year old Jean Simmons as Kanchi, who threaten to steal the picture. The suspenseful climax will remind you a bit of Hitchcock's "Vertigo" made 11 years later. This is a fascinating, subtly erotic film about repression and duty, sometimes melodramatic but constantly affecting, and quite worthy of viewing.