Film Notes: Black Narcissus

Black Narcissus (1947) film notes by Tova Gannana for our Enchanted Evenings: The Boundless Cinema of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger series, running September to November 2024 at SIFF Cinema Egyptian. Follow Tova on Instagram: @tovagannana

The series is presented by The British Film Institute, SIFF, and Greg Olson Productions. Passes and tickets available now.

A scent can stir a memory. The world is full of regret, escape, and remembrance. How does one move on while staying put? In every walk of life, in every human endeavor, is the call of work: to tire one’s mind, to blunt one’s troubles. Too much rest, and there’ll be too much time to think.

Black Narcissus (1947) is a film full of sound. A church bell rung by nuns telling time but also a reminder to keep up, let go, give in, give over. Time: our ultimate master.

Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) has been appointed to take charge of St. Faith. “You will be the youngest Mother Superior in our order,” the Reverend Mother in Calcutta tells her. Sister Clodagh will lead St. Faith in a palace atop a mountain in Mopu, Darjeeling. In the Reverend Mother’s office she asks, “Who am I to take with me?” The answer: Sister Briony (Judith Furse) for her strength, Sister Philippa (Flora Robson) for her gardening skills, Sister Honey (Jenny Laird) for her popularity, and Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron) who is troubled, who isn’t at the dinner table, her place empty but for fork and knife, who has been sick, but who is picked to go by Reverend Mother because, “She’s a problem, I’m afraid she’ll be a problem for you too. With a smaller community she may be better. Give her responsibilities, Sister. She badly wants importance.” The Reverend Mother has her doubts about Sister Clodagh’s appointment: “I think you aren’t ready for it. And I think you’ll be lonely. Never forget: We are an order of workers. Work them hard. And remember. The superior of all is a servant of all.” Thus is Sister Clodagh squeezed out of one place and into another.

The palace in Mopu is abandoned yet beautiful, though the grounds are in need of tending. The walls are painted brightly in blue with murals of dancing women, women in conversation, women bathing. Mopu is introduced through a letter written to the Reverend Mother by the agent of General Toda Rai, Mr. Dean (David Farrar): “I live in the valley out of the wind. So does the general and so do the people. Mopu Palace stands in the wind on a shelf on a mountain. It was built by the General’s father to keep his women there.”

The church bell at St. Faith is rung on the hour by the sisters, while the horns and drums beaten by the valley dwellers sound continuously, as does the wind, which blows constantly and has no beginning, no end. About the new numbers, Mr. Dean says, “I’ll give them till the rains break.” Like the Reverend Mother, he has his doubts. The sound of rain is in everyone’s imagination: knowing the rains will come, the rains will break, the rains mark time by who will be arriving and who will be leaving.

St. Faith is a new name, but the doors and doorways to the palace of women remain, as do the paths leading up and down from the valley to the mountain. The sisters of St. Faith have statues of Jesus, and the people of Mopu have their Holy Man, who sits like a statue in silence. Only the Holy Man is alive and breathing. He is brought bowls of food, is a vessel of prayer like the statues of Jesus. The people don’t pray to the Holy Man, just as the nuns don’t pray to the statues of Jesus, though both are physical reminders of faith. the Holy Man makes no sound, but he hears. Like the sisters before they joined their order, the Holy Man has a past. Mr. Dean tells Sister Clodagh, who would like to turn him out, who the Holy Man is: “General Sir Krishna Rain, K.C.V.O., K.C.S.I., C.M.G. He has several foreign decorations too. He lent our general the money to buy this place. I’ve never heard him talk. They say he speaks perfect English. Several other European languages too.” All that he has lived and learned, the Holy Man keeps inside. He could speak, but he has chosen not too; his silence is an emblem. If he has been hurt, cheated, lied to, stolen from, loved well, traveled far, he does not share. His sacrifice/commitment is not to an order of work, but to a vow of silence.

The world is full of noise as well as choices. Time can be well spent, or well wasted. We can chase, or we can accept. Sister Ruth does not get better. She pours a glass of milk out of her window. She grows thin. She applies lipstick. She doesn’t renew her vows. Sister Clodagh wears her white cloak, while Sister Ruth dons a red dress. Mr. Dean comes between them, though he doesn’t want to. He’s a distraction at St. Faith just as the general’s father was in his palace of women. “Til the rains break” becomes a season, not a celebration like Christmas. Sister Phillipa plants flowers instead of vegetables. St. Faith turns into a band covering songs instead of writing something original.

On her last day at St. Faith, Sister Clodagh has given all she’s got, “but I shall have my ghosts to remind me.” The sisters did nothing wrong in coming to Mopu other than believing that what they were doing was right.