MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

HotToastyRag Deborah Kerr plays a nun who's transferred against her will to head up a new seminary and school in Calcutta. While most of the movie tries to convince the audience how stressful the assignment is, and how terrible the "heathens" are, I was left puzzled. What she and the other four accompanying nuns went through wasn't that bad. Why did they lose it?For no explained reason, David Farrar lives in Calcutta, and despite a couple of drunken episodes, he's always around to dispense advice or help the struggling nuns. Most of the natives aren't interested in being saved or educated, but a very influential member of society actively seeks their help in furthering his education, so doesn't that kind of make up for the others' apathy? It was very strange to me, that these non-problems cause the nuns to hallucinate, beg for transfers, and lose their tempers.Jean Simmons has a very small part in this movie. She plays a morally loose Indian, given to the nuns so that she might stay out of trouble. She was given dark makeup for her skin and an earring for her nose, but her performance is more comical than believable. And to top it off, she doesn't utter a single word! But, regardless how much you like Jean Simmons, or Deborah Kerr, don't watch this one. You can see Deborah Kerr play a nun in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, which is a far better movie.

Rickting A film about emotional tensions, jealousy and lust starring... nuns. That automatically makes this religious drama considerably more interesting, but with its amazing photography and acting, this emotional roller coaster hits peaks as high as the mountain range it's set in. The story follows a group of nuns and their emotional crisis while isolated in a valley in the Himalayas. This is the first Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger film that I've seen, and based on this I'd certainly be up for watching more. Sadly, like many older movies it suffers from pacing problems which will put off viewers used to faster paced and dumber modern cinema. Still, despite its dips, it completes its dramatic story arc in satisfying style and ultimately delivers on the hard hitting emotion. It's a very well acted movie, with Deborah Kerr standing out in particular as the lead, while every shot is stunning. It's a very well filmed movie and many images linger in the memory long after the emotionally stirring ending.Black Narcissus works very well as a story. It's emotional without being manipulative and sentimental and the characters are complex and fully realized. It may seem slow and mundane to modern viewers, which admittedly it is at times, but whenever the pace dips the film usually manages to regain your attention one way or another. Thematically it's a deep movie, and thanks to intelligent writing it all comes together very well. Today it remains a striking film, but it's difficult to imagine how powerful this was for viewers in 1947. It's recommended viewing for those who enjoy classic movies and it's a triumph for British cinema. It's not as quite as strong as, say, The Third Man, but be prepared before viewing. This one has a real sting even today, and it's worth watching for the wonderful cinematography alone.9/10

Ross622 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's Black Narcissus is a movie about nuns that takes every religious drama up to a whole new level. The movie tells the story about 5 nuns who are Protestants instead of Catholics led by Sister Clodagh (played by Deborah Kerr) who end up setting up a school in the Himalayas with lots of struggles of their own with lots of children wanting to learn things from them. The way that both Powell and Pressburger direct this movie reminds me of how the Coen brothers would direct their movies only that the Coen brothers movies are much more entertaining. There was a lot of other great performances in this movie from Kathleen Byron as the nun who is really sick of what Sister Clodagh is doing that she gets driven insane, a young Jean Simmons as an Indian teenager known to cause trouble frequently, Flora Robson, Jenny Laird, and Judith Furse as the three other nuns, Sabu (who was famous for playing Mowgli in the 1942 adaptation of The Jungle Book) as the young General, and David Farrar as Mr. Dean a man who would always help the nuns with their work and answer any questions they had for him. The most entertaining part of this movie is one of the final scenes in which you see Sister Clodagh is ringing the bell and then you see Sister Ruth (played by Kathleen Byron) trying to kill her when the attempt fails and especially for my first time ever seeing this film and that scene was the scene in the film that I least expected to happen. A masterpiece, as well as one of the greatest movies ever made.

geneva notagain Its rather hard to believe this movie is produced in the 40s while the matureness and colorfulness of the cinematography is basically indistinguishable from some of the works produced in the recent decade, and the complexity and lingering influence of the story overshadows most of the contemporary commercial blasts, even the old school jazz soundtrack and elegance of stage performances add up to the spellbind capacity of the film. The most impressive scenes are definitely when Kathleen Byron quietly and composedly putting on her blood-colored lipstick, wearing a maroon low cut dress instead of virginity white nunnery uniform, the tension and detonating prowess of her performances is palpable. She is willing to abandon her religion for years to pursue secular pleasures, which is unrequited love and accompanying caustic jealous that ended up consumed her last shred of dignity and kindness and even her life. The enervation's of religion and diabolicalization of love and hatred is expressively contrasted, the courage to address the forbidden and controvertible issue in 1940 is invigorating for the contemporary generation, while the freedom and latitude is supposedly keeping widening, this kind of freshly iconoclastic question is less brought up by movies and the desensitized audience seem to be more satisfied with them. The story tells the story in a eerie context, the roof of the world surrounded by vibrant flowers and mistral blowing wind, with unsophisticated and secluded people,a living god abode in the middle of the mountain, and a rawly loved-by-all man with perfect masculinity and strange flirtatious gravitas. This all happens in a totally unfamiliar way, thus creates a sharp schism between reality.But do people living in an ordinary life ever question their religions? Or the doubt and incredulity only happens when we are not surrounded by cultured human beings and given an opportunity to be totally free and uncurdled in the nature?