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A group of nuns struggle to establish a convent in the Himalayas, while isolation, extreme weather, altitude, and culture clashes all conspire to drive the well-intentioned missionaries mad. (NR, 101 min.)
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This explosive work about the conflict between the spirit and the flesh is the epitome of the sensuous style of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. A group of nuns—played by some of Britain’s finest actresses, including Deborah Kerr, Kathleen Byron, and Flora Robson—struggle to establish a convent in the Himalayas, while isolation, extreme weather, altitude, and culture clashes all conspire to drive the well-intentioned missionaries mad. A darkly grand film that won Oscars for Alfred Junge's art direction and Jack Cardiff's cinematography, Black Narcissus is one of the greatest achievements by two of cinema’s true visionaries. [Criterion]
Starring: Deborah Kerr, David Farrar, Flora Robson
Director: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Genre: Drama
"This is a landmark of Hollywood-on-Thames trompe-l’oeil."
— Michael Sragow, The New Yorker
"It remains a rapturous, near-indescribable work of cinematic art."
— Noel Murray, AV Club
"Black Narcissus has an erotic charge that's to this day been so often lacking in British cinema."
— Tom Dawson, BBC
"Powell's equally extravagant visual style transforms it into a landscape of the mind -- grand and terrible in its thorough abstraction."
— Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
"Kathleen Byron is unforgettable as a sister who goes dangerously off the rails. A beautifully designed movie with Oscar-winning colour photography by Jack Cardiff. [27 Apr 2014]"
— Philip French, The Observer (UK)
"Powell and Press-burger may have a picture that will disturb and antagonize some, they also have in Black Narcissus an artistic accomplishment of no small proportions."
— Staff, The New York Times
"The co-directors created from Rumer Godden's novel an extraordinary melodrama of repressed love and Forsterian Englishness - or rather Irishness - coming unglued in the vertiginous landscape of South Asia. Run, don't walk to see this 1947 classic from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger."
— Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
"For Powell and Pressburger, the personal and the political—much like their distinctive mix of high and low artistry—weren’t separate bedfellows: Even a marvelously entertaining tale of repressed abbesses on the edge could explore, with enduring resonance and profundity, an empire losing its grip."
— Keith Uhlich, Time Out
"Fifty Shades of Grey can only dream of being as erotic a work as Powell and Pressburger's tale of repressed desire and simmering passions among a community of nuns at a convent in the Himalayas. Jack Cardiff's cinematography, with its rich, dark interiors and mountains painted on glass, is among the most beautiful in film. [09 Mar 2020]"
— Tim Robey, The Telegraph
