UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Peter Hayes Nuns form a nunnery in the Himalayan "roof the world" and quickly get swept up by the local traditions, cultures and people. Being more effected by them than the natives are by the newly arrived nuns.Films are made too often and too often for the wrong reasons for them to stumble in the world of profound art. But here they have created a masterpiece which despite passing of time rarely fails to enthral and amaze. The care and attention to detail are astonishing.(Shame the bell tower scene features on the poster and in the trailer - should be kept as a surprise. But any film maker - from Hitchcock down - could learn from it. If they haven't already.)The first thing this film needs and then gets is a great cast. Deborah Kerr is amazing as she has to play two roles: The nun and the nun in her former life. This isn't as easy as you would believe and provides insight and comparison. The locals are well cast too - and believable - in a way so few films of the period are. Fully fleshed with a life and agendas of their own.Emeric Pressburger is a genius. This film is all the evidence anyone would need. Like musicals it has all the ingredients not only to be a failure - but a complete joke. A colony of nuns in the middle of nowhere! What nerve the producers had! My final thoughts are the final thoughts of many favourite films. Flawed or otherwise. They are a deep experience. Not always a pleasant experience and not always an experience you wish to repeat, but a unique experience. Black Narcissus is a unique experience and there aren't that many films that stand on their own like that. See it.

Rob Starzec This film tries way too hard to dramatize a situation that I do not find that dramatic in the first place: a nun's struggle to suppress her sexual desires. At least that's one of the two things in this film that can pass as dramatic: that and the natives of the village struggling with a sickness that is going around.The climax of the film has nothing to do with the latter, and is heavily invested in the idea that one of the nuns is choosing to leave this group of nuns because she can't suppress her sexuality. I say good for her, making her own decisions. Why does she NEED to stay, why must the other Sisters feel obligated to "save" her? Maybe that is just my view on religion though - I never liked the idea of imposing your religious beliefs or practices on others since religion is a faith, not a certainty.The rest of the movie is extremely slow, focusing on the Sisters' process of creating a school for the children of the community they visit. This film looks good aesthetically, but it tries too much to dramatize something that I do not find dramatic.

gavin6942 After opening a convent in the Himalayas, five nuns encounter conflict and tension - both with the natives and also within their own group - as they attempt to adapt to their remote, exotic surroundings.This film has absolutely amazing color, and has gone on to be known as the film that best demonstrated how Technicolor should be used. I would agree completely with this assessment. I had no idea that color could look so good in the 1940s, and in many ways it looks better than it does today.The film's themes are also good. Some have said it is about "nuns and lust", but not in the sense that was made popular in the 1970s. That is certainly true, but many other themes exist -- not the least of which is the British influence on India, not long before their independence.

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?