Black Narcissus [Blu-ray]

I have previously bought this wonderful film on laserdisc from Criterion and I have loved it and thought the transfer was good, even though colour strips weren't 100% synced. It has become one of my very favourite movies and the partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger one of my all time favourite director/writer team (Life and Death of Coronel Blimp and the Red Shoes are also totally wonderful).

Before I saw this movie again on this Blu-ray I had no idea that it could as awazing as it did on this release. Not only were the colours even more vibrant than ever, but the detail in the picture was staggering. I can now see all the detail in the walls, costumes and props. Alfred Junge got the Oscar for production design on this movie and it is understandable now more than ever. Everything looked totally breathtaking and I could now, more than ever, understand the distraction and beauty that make the nuns forget what they were doing. This is also thanks to the wonderful photography of Jack Cardiff, who won the Oscar for it. His use of colors and the lighting are nothing short of brilliant. When viewing the film it is hard to believe that everything was shot at Pinewood studios, save for some shots from the English countryside. It is a lesson to filmmakers nowadays that you can make a believable movie totally in the studio.
The documentary "The profile of Black Narcissus" is included and is quite informative and interesting, featuring interviews with several of the people who made it, including Jack Cardiff and Kathleen Byron. Is is presented in 576p, so some people with a TV that doesn't support this resolution may have problems viewing it. The Blu-ray is also region free.
If you haven't seen the movie before and are interested in the old way of moviemaking then I totally recommend this magnificent picture.

I have long admired the "Black Narcissus" with it's almost choking atmosphere of high emotions and ethereal beauty. It is simply astonishing to think how long ago it was filmed, and the fact that it was all incredibly filmed within Brittania's shores. Those were the days when improvisation, ingenuity and no little talent were to be found in abundance. The film is set in the Himalayas but the outdoor scenes were actually filmed in the gardens of a retired Indian Officers home, which had many of the plants native to his old home. There are some lovely shots of vividly coloured Camelias, Rhodedendroms and Magnolias in all their glory. Most of the Indian extras were grabbed from the docks at Rotherhithe. The beautiful matte paintings gave the Himalayas an almost mythical "Lord of the Rings" feel, and added much to the character of the film. These paintings are reminiscent of the very finest work the Disney studios created in their earlier years. Who needed to travel to the Himalayas with such talent at your disposal on your very doorstep?

In the film a group of nuns are sent to open a new school and hospital in the Palace of Mopu high in the Himalayas near to Darjeeling. The palace was a former seraglio with murals of the semi naked wives of past rulers adorning the walls in an erotically suggestive manner. The nuns hope to convert some of the locals to their religion but find that the palace begins to exert its own malevolent influence on them. Tensions begin to bubble into a simmering Mount Vesuvius of repressed emotions, ready to explode before the final credits roll. We head to a giddy climax.

The film is based on a book by that excellent writer Rumer Godden who knew a thing or two about the sub continent having lived there in her formative years. The film boasts a strong cast lead by the always watchable Deborah Kerr, who is forever etched in my memory rolling in the surf with Burt Lancaster in "From Here to Eternity". David Farrar is excellent as an alpha male exuding bare chested male virility and tempting our nuns off the straight and narrow. Flora Robson is excellent as always in the role of a nun wracked with doubt. Jean Simmons follows her early success in David Lean's "Great Expectations" as a fetching teenage Indian Lolita. Sabu is her young admirer.

The film contains so many good scenes you tend to lose count, but it is hard to forget Kathleen Byron's moment of high melodrama with Kerr in the films frantic finale. The Palace of Mopu with its ever screaming winds is a brilliantly realised building where phantoms brood and mourn. The sort of place to find in the work of Edgar Allan Poe. Jack Cardiff's photography is sublime in this film as it was so often, his use of atmospheric light being particularly strong. Powell and Pressburger have made a little gem with this film, and it is up there with the very best of their fine canon of work. Like Powell's "Edge of the World" this film is oh so very deserving of a good blu-ray release, and it has never looked better under this treatment. Again brought back to vivid life. Nothing really to complain about except........ why, oh why did they build that damn bell in such a stupid place? Where were health and safety when they were needed?

This Blu-Ray version of BLACK NARCISSUS is truly fantastic. There have been DVD releases in the past in Australia, but they were from ordinary (probably ex TV) masters, so the full vibrancy and colours of this outstanding film were lost. But not now. The added bonus of this release is the terrific 'making of' documentary, which seems to have been made in the last 10 years, bringing back some of the stars and anecdotes of the filming. Great fun which provides an insight into the film-making processes of the time.
If you are interested in film, great story-telling and especially great transfer's of Technicolor productions, just order it, you won't be disappointed.