MOVIE REVIEW: “Black Narcissus”
“Black Narcissus” (1947)
Directed/Produced/Written by: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Written by (novel): Rumer Golden
Cinematography: Brian Easdale
Starring: Deborah Kerr, Jean Simmons
************(12) out of a possible 4 Stars
This is the all time most profound portrayal of a collision of sex and faith combined with Catholic ritual, set high in the Himalayas of Northern India. This is a portrayal of the English civilization coming apart at the seams…all the hypocrisy and religious fervor bursting in a stunningly visual cacophony. This is by far the most exotic cinematic footage ever recorded on film.
From beginning to end, this is the most hysterical film ever made (that is not a bad thing). It is completely brilliant. This is Maxfield Parrish catapulted into another universe and then jacked up on steroids to an extreme beyond belief level.
Think of Tamara Lempicka, the most stylized art deco portrait painter of the 20th century rife with pungent decadent sensuality. The nuns all look like 200 Lempicka paintings. Throughout the entire film the Lempicka imagery is prevalent, it is sublime. No film ever made is more beautiful. Ingmar Bergman made 15 northern European versions of this film (after the fact), and even with his genius, all his genius never had the slathering layers of the sublime that every frame of this film has.
Even the British expert Alfred Hitchcock at his best is never better than this effort which was written, produced, and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in 1947.
Considering Orson Well’s “Citizen Kane” is the critic’s choice as the greatest film ever made, also consider that Schenck thinks it is a 200-year-old moldy, wooden, faded totem pole when compared to “Black Narcissus.” This film is not obtuse. This film breathes sweats, dreams, smells, and excretes the human condition. There is nothing like this film in existence. The cinematography makes John Ford’s Monument Valley westerns look like the sole of worn out sodbuster shoes. This film is excruciatingly beautiful. It is post-referential. It is from heaven.
