When Producer/Director Michael Powell (after he was black listed in Britain) became an advisor to Martin Scorsese, he remarked that it was better to film either entirely in studio or on location, not mix the two. BLACK NARCISSUS (1946) was the example he gave of the first approach. (He felt the footage he shot at sea for BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE (1956) jarred his viewers when contrasted with studio constructions.) BLACK NARCISSUS, a story of tested faith in far off India, was filmed entirely at Rank Studios in southern England, and in a nearby English "wild garden."

Based on a first novel by Anglo-Indian Rumer Godden, the film begins with the bald headed man striking J. Arthur Rank's large gong (soon to become familiar to American audiences), followed by the Archers Company Target and arrows; then, ironically juxtaposed, the sight and sound of long Himalayan mountain horns. BLACK NARCISSUS relates the parable of a group of five Anglican Nuns sent from Calcutta in the 1930's to the Indian State of Mopu, 8000 feet high, on the Nepalese border to the Northwest. They are led by the newly promoted Sister Superior Clodagh (Deborah Kerr). She has been given an experienced nurse and veteran of such expeditions, Sister Briony (Judith Furse), and a horticulturist, Sister Philippa (Flora Robson). The two junior members of the team are Sister 'Honey' Blanche (Jenny Laird), an idealistic samaritan; and Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron), who has been included because she is troubled and needs seasoning to solidify her commitment. Their mission is to serve the people they find and, if possible, to convert them to Christianity, by their example.

The film is an allegory of the difficulties that all of us have in maintaining our beliefs when we leave the reinforcement of those who have given us our values. The Nuns represent various attitudes toward humans and the Spirit. The Valley of Mopu they pass through teems with lives imbued with older, more complex beliefs. The District Agent, Mr Dean (David Farrar), a worldly macho, acts as a go-between for the Nuns and the people. It amuses their patron, the Old General (Esmond Knight), to give them for their nunnery the old Mopu Palace, clinging to a sheer cliff, where his forebears housed their mistresses and courtesans. Above the Palace, on the mountain, is the former ruler, now a Brahman holy man, who has renounced the World and sits perpetually in silence, contemplating the distant Himalayas higher up yet.

From the start, the Nuns, dedicated for the most part, have trouble with the altitude, understanding the customs of the people, and their own repressed earlier lives. Sister Clodagh thinks of a lost romance she had in the hills of Ireland. Sister Briony, guided by past experience, tries to prevent the others from becoming too close to their students in the school or the patients in the dispensary. Sister Philippa resents her duty to restrict the garden to needed vegetables, rather than the flowers she loves. Sister 'Honey' feels the older Nuns are not sympathetic enough to the troubles of the people, while Sister Ruth sinks further into a psychotic state of depression, not recognized back in Calcutta.

Into their uncertain mix, comes the Young Prince (Sabu), heir to the throne, sent to continue his education with them; and Kanchi (Jean Simmons), a beautiful orphan student (perhaps a natural child of the family), who in other days might have found a place in the Royal seraglio. They are all advised by the hectic Angu Ayah (May Hallatt), a former resident and perhaps Madam of the old Mopu Palace; and the cynical Mr Dean, who Sister Clodagh, in particular, resents because he reminds her of her lost love, and because she thinks he "lets the side down" with his casual ways.

The allegory plays out, as it does in our lives, with small victories and small defeats, a casualty or two.

Michael Powell and his partner, Screen Writer Emeric Pressburger, fashioned a story which is timeless, even if the realistic details are stylized, even stilted at times. (Powell said all films are surrealistic. "They are making something that looks like the real world but isn't.") With the help of their Archers' Team -- Brian Easdale's music, Jack Cardiff's photography, and especially Hein Heckroth's production design -- they created a Shangri-La both real and mystical.

The Himalayas, the palace, the sheer cliff, all are sets, models, hanging miniatures, paintings on glass. The renowned shot of the first giant drops of the Monsoon rain falling on jungle leaves was done by Powell with a garden hose in a local horticultural garden.

BLACK NARCISSUS was also Michael Powell's first real experiment in "composed film." Following the lead of Orson Welles in *CITIZEN KANE (1941) and THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942), he choreographed the photographed action to some of the dialogue and much of the music. Sister Ruth's mad "dance" at the film's climax, for instance, prefigures a segment of "The Dance of the Red Shoes" in his masterpiece *THE RED SHOES (1948). (Powell was a great influence on Hitchcock, and the Post War Hollywood Musical.)

BLACK NARCISSUS (along with her Estella in GREAT EXPECTATIONS) presented Jean Simmons in a showcase role to International audiences. She went to Hollywood with Deborah Kerr, where they were both stars for many years. It was also the last significant film for Sabu (THE ELEPHANT BOY, Flaherty/Z. Korda, 1936; THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD, Berger, Whelan, Powell, 1940). He may have been the first authentic star of color to appeal to mass audiences in International films. He is certainly the only major player who is Indian in BLACK NARCISSUS.

The title BLACK NARCISSUS, by the way, refers not only to a Far Eastern flower but to an inexpensive cologne sold in London department stores in the 1930's.

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Recommended: Yes