BLACK NARCISSUS is a Command Movie with a twist: it’s set in a convent high in the Himalayas, and its commander is a young nun who is in far over her head. It’s a spotty film, with brilliant moments balanced with groaners and a great setup marred by a poor resolution.
Deborah Kerr plays the nun, a smart and wealthy Irish girl who forsakes her home for the austerity of service. Her order sends her to a decrepit old compound up in the mountains, in a part of Raj-era India so remote that it can’t even boast a proper English presence. To succeed, she must lead the nuns assigned to her (whether she likes them or not), win the respect of local leaders and villagers, and defeat the elements and scratch subsistence out of the rocky soil.
It’s a great setup, right? Toss in a rakish young David Farrar as the local satrap’s English advisor and default sex symbol to the women of the convent, and you could really be on to something. And for the first two-thirds of the film, BLACK NARCISSUS is. Yes, there’s an annoying subplot about a local prince and a girl of low reputation, but the film doesn’t let that kill it. BLACK NARCISSUS gives us all the personality conflicts, culture clashes, and delightfully quaint colonial color we could desire. It even builds up to a series of cascading crises that put both me and my ten-year-old boy on edge.
But then, in the last act, it all falls apart. Because the film can’t adequately manage cascading crises, it tries to merge them all into one climactic sequence that depends, for its success, on disregarding previously established geography and an editing style that makes the audience wonder who’s doing what to whom.
What a disappointment. BLACK NARCISSUS has so much going for it, especially early on. If only it had followed through.
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