Black Narcissus is a 1947 drama co-directed, co-produced, and co-written by British duo Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell known together as The Archers who also collaborated on great films such as The Red Shoes, The Tales of Hoffmann, The Small Backroom, “I Know Where I’m Going!” and others.
Based on the 1939 novel of the same name by Margaret Rumer Godden, Black Narcissus follows a Superior nun named Sister Clodagh and 4 fellow Sisters who are sent to Saint Faith, a remote Indian village in Southern Asia. The palace of Mopu is 8,000 feet above sea level facing a mountain range nearly as high as Mount Everest. The highest Peak, Nange Dalle (Nange Daily), is nicknamed The Bare Goddess for a good reason. General Toda Rai donates the palace to the nuns to open a school and a dispensary and assigns Mr. Dean as the nun’s guide as well as their link to the villagers. The palace of The Bare Goddess sits on a high windy shelf above Mr. Dean and the villagers who live far below in the valley. To Superior Sister Clodagh and her 4 sisters, the task of setting up the school and clinic seems simple. But none of the sisters are prepared for the high altitude, the strong wind, the spell of The Bare Goddess; they can hide their bodies but they can’t hide the mountain. The film’s music is by Brian Easdale, is edited by Reginald Mills, and its cinematography is by Jack Cardiff. The film stars Deborah Kerr as Sister Clodah, David Farrar as Mr. Dean, Kathleen Byron as Sister Ruth, and Jean Simmons as the village girl Katchi. The film won 2 Academy Awards for cinematography and art direction for Jack Cardiff and Alfred Junge, respectively, with actress Deborah Kerr winning the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. In this presentation, I will take a closer look at the film’s themes and offer my personal opinion of the film at the end.
Themes
Empathy
You have to relate to people to empathize with them. This is the story of Jesus who came in the flesh to experience life as we experience it and to be tempted in all ways like us. Like Jesus, the nuns are sent to a palace exalted high above a remote village in south Asia to build a school and a hospital for the natives. The natives are connected to the land through farming and live simply. But unlike Jesus, the nuns are running away from everything associated with pain and any other feeling reminding them of the past and what they are. As a result of this renunciation, the nuns are to the villagers as the palace is to the valley, high and out of reach. For example, a young general named Dilib Rai congratulates Clodagh, the Superior nun, on the birth of Jesus. She reprimands him by telling him that Christ is not addressed in such a casual way. But a local guide named Dean is within earshot and objects to this formality by pointing out that Christ should be casual and as much a part of life as our daily bread.
You have to relate to people to empathize with them. This is the story of Jesus who came in the flesh to experience life as we experience it and to be tempted in all ways like us. Like Jesus, the nuns are sent to a palace exalted high above a remote village in south Asia to build a school and a hospital for the natives. The natives are connected to the land through farming and live simply. But unlike Jesus, the nuns are running away from everything associated with pain and any other feeling reminding them of the past and what they are. As a result of this renunciation, the nuns are to the villagers as the palace is to the valley, high and out of reach. For example, a young general named Dilib Rai congratulates Clodagh, the Superior nun, on the birth of Jesus. She reprimands him by telling him that Christ is not addressed in such a casual way. But a local guide named Dean is within earshot and objects to this formality by pointing out that Christ should be casual and as much a part of life as our daily bread.
This separation of the divine and the flesh is symbolized by the Holy man who isolates himself from the other villagers and spends all day and all night staring at the mountain. For example, there is a scene where he doesn’t react at all when a villager dies. In an equivalent scene, Sister Clodagh tries to get a nun named Ruth to open up and talk to her concerning the nun’s weight loss. Ruth’s weight loss is due to worry concerning her vows to the nunnery and her attraction to a man--Dean, their guide. But knowing how Clodagh would condemn her if she were truthful about this, Ruth refuses to confide in Clodagh.
If Clodagh could accept her own feelings as a woman, Ruth would feel like Clodagh could relate to her and open up. But Clodagh, being the Superior Sister, is self-righteous, insensitive and is as cut off from herself as the Holy man is from the other villagers.
Hebrews 4:15, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are...”
The power of the senses
Stimulation reconnects the nuns to the past and their emotions. Sister Phillipa is reminded of what she was before becoming a nun when she finds Dean fixing a pipe in the shower. Dilib Rai’s colorful clothes and jewelry reminds Clodagh of the emerald necklace and other jewelry her grandmother left her. When Dean joins in singing Noel and Lullay my Liking, his masculine voice reminds Clodagh of the night her fiancé gave her a present of jewelry.
Stimulation reconnects the nuns to the past and their emotions. Sister Phillipa is reminded of what she was before becoming a nun when she finds Dean fixing a pipe in the shower. Dilib Rai’s colorful clothes and jewelry reminds Clodagh of the emerald necklace and other jewelry her grandmother left her. When Dean joins in singing Noel and Lullay my Liking, his masculine voice reminds Clodagh of the night her fiancé gave her a present of jewelry.
The House of The Bare Goddess: TemptationWhen the nuns arrive at the palace, sister Phillipa complains about the garden being overgrown. And later, Clodagh tells Dean that something in the air and high altitude has “exaggerated” everything. Both the overgrown garden and that “something in the air” is nature. Nature’s power over the body is more powerful at Mopu palace. Dean and Katchi symbolize nature. This explains Dean’s raw masculinity, his mostly exposed body and its effect on the nuns, and also the effect of his voice when he sings with the nuns (On a side note, pay attention to the young general’s face when Dean sings and the general’s comment about Dean’s deep, beautiful voice afterwards). The power of nature over the mind also explains how Katchi’s raw sensuality is able to seduce and ultimately conquer the young general who believes that going to an all-girls school is as simple as studying hard.
The nuns, the Holy man, and the young general have their own ways of resisting the power of nature. The Holy man isolates himself from other villagers; deprives himself of all sensory stimulation; and he concentrates all of his attention on a mountain. Likewise, the nuns resist nature through hard labor and covering their entire bodies from head to foot. To suppress the instinct to nurture the sick, a child with a high fever is turned out of the convent and sent home with its mother. The child dies as a result but pay attention to the tussle between sisters Briony and Honey. Honey's maternal nurturing instincts come out in this scene as she begs sister Briony to keep and comfort the baby. Also, the nuns restrict the school to young women and children. The nuns limit the color of the garden to green vegetables. And at the end of the film when Ruth trades in her habit for a red dress, Clodagh responds to her by reading the Bible.
When all other efforts to resist temptation fall short, the nuns respond to the power of nature with denial. There’s a scene in the school in which Katchi and Ruth catch a whiff of Dilib Rai’s perfume. Katchi is aroused by the general’s scent and expresses her feelings; but Ruth lies about the perfume’s effect on her. In another scene, Ruth sees some small children and fights back her nurturing instincts by criticizing them.
Humility
Black Narcissus ends with a showdown between Clodagh and Ruth on the cliff underneath the bell. This is a symbolic confrontation as Ruth--in her red dress and red lipstick--has eaten of the forbidden fruit by renouncing her vows to God and a religion that doesn’t relate to her human frailties. In the struggle with Clodagh, Ruth loses her balance and falls off the cliff and down to earth. This falling from heaven and the height of the mountain is symbolic. Ruth falls down to the villagers level, to that of a human.
Black Narcissus ends with a showdown between Clodagh and Ruth on the cliff underneath the bell. This is a symbolic confrontation as Ruth--in her red dress and red lipstick--has eaten of the forbidden fruit by renouncing her vows to God and a religion that doesn’t relate to her human frailties. In the struggle with Clodagh, Ruth loses her balance and falls off the cliff and down to earth. This falling from heaven and the height of the mountain is symbolic. Ruth falls down to the villagers level, to that of a human.
Isaiah 40:4, “Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.”
From the valley below, Clodagh looks up and sees clouds covering the palace, a sign that nature can never exist separately from the body. Clodagh learns also that she cannot help the villagers from the mountain just as Jesus himself had to come down from Heaven to Earth in the form of flesh and blood man:
Romans 8:3, “For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh...”
Wrap
“A basket of fruit, piled high and luscious and ready to eat” are the words Margarette Rumor Godden--the author of the book that this film is based on--uses to describe the village girl Katchi; however, the same words can be equally applied to the film itself which, like the village girl, is inflamed with erotic tension. Art director Alfred Junge does a terrific job in articulating this tension in the costumes by juxtaposing the nuns’ stark white religious habits against the young general’s flower patterned coats, gold, turquoise, jade jewelry. This tension carries over to contrasting the nuns’ restrictive habits against Dean who may as well have worn a thong throughout the entire film as his bare legs and torso are exposed and glowing as if rubbed in baby oil. All of these visual motifs--the lushly colored surroundings of the village; the young general’s colorful wardrobe; Dean and Katchi’s unabashed sexuality--underscores the plot’s tension and the nuns’ struggle to repress memories of what they were prior to joining the order.
“A basket of fruit, piled high and luscious and ready to eat” are the words Margarette Rumor Godden--the author of the book that this film is based on--uses to describe the village girl Katchi; however, the same words can be equally applied to the film itself which, like the village girl, is inflamed with erotic tension. Art director Alfred Junge does a terrific job in articulating this tension in the costumes by juxtaposing the nuns’ stark white religious habits against the young general’s flower patterned coats, gold, turquoise, jade jewelry. This tension carries over to contrasting the nuns’ restrictive habits against Dean who may as well have worn a thong throughout the entire film as his bare legs and torso are exposed and glowing as if rubbed in baby oil. All of these visual motifs--the lushly colored surroundings of the village; the young general’s colorful wardrobe; Dean and Katchi’s unabashed sexuality--underscores the plot’s tension and the nuns’ struggle to repress memories of what they were prior to joining the order.
It is hard to believe that as beautiful and as scenic as this film is that it was shot primarily at Pinewood Studios in Southeast England with large-scale landscape paintings, scale models, and matte paintings. The landscape settings were filmed at Leonardslee Gardens in West Sussex, the General’s palace was shot at the home of an Indian Army retiree. None of the scenes in the film were shot anywhere in South Asia. This film is so well shot--especially the aerial scenes of the mountains and palace--and so striking in its colors that there are few films I can compare it with.
Martin Scorsese--who happens to be a huge fan of the film and its director Michael Powell--called the film one of the earliest erotic films and I agree with him 100%. At times, though, the erotica angle is so obvious that I found myself laughing such as the scenes involving Dean and the nuns. Powell is such a great technician that it is hard for me to think that the humor in these scenes weren’t intentional. But I found the most erotic scenes in the film for me involved Kathleen Byron’s character Ruth’s transformation from uptight nun to super-freak acting out Clodagh’s desire for David Farrar’s character Dean.
All of the acting in the film is terrific despite the fact that of all the principal characters, only 1--young general Dilib Rai--is Indian. Jean Simmons, who plays the village girl Katchi, is British and had her face painted for the role. Despite this, it is hard to imagine any actress other than Simmons playing this role as--or more--seductively, especially in the scenes where she seduces the young general. Deborah Kerr is also terrific as sister Clodagh, the Superior Sister tasked with keeping her fellow sisters in line while also struggling with herself. But, to me, the standout performance is Kathleen Byron’s character Ruth who steals the last 1/3rd of the film when she trades in her religious habit for the red dress and red lipstick; wow! Her physical transformation reminds me of the point in The Wizard of Oz where the film goes from black and white to technicolor. The scenes involving her and Dean early in the film also stand out, especially 1 in which Dean is shirtless and her moving in slow motion for a closer look. Funny scene.
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger have collaborated on many films and I would put Black Narcissus up there with The Red Shoes as among their very best and 1 I’d recommend to someone who hasn’t seen their films.
