BLACK NARCISSUS (1947) **1/2 Nuns and mountains, the London Symphony Orchestra and insanity, Deborah Kerr trying to act holy and Jean Simmons trying to act Mongolian, inexorable winds and the culmination of rain..there's nothing wrong with the story line or the acting, but what the film's really about is how Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger set up a shot. Just great shots one after the other, no matter whether they're on location or backdrops, or whatever-Powell and Pressburger bring out the beauty in whatever they happen to be looking at. The flower shots are my favourites, but the Kama Sutran murals are very nice also. Then, after they've done that for an hour or so, they flip gears into what's essentially horror mode. Kathleen Byron starts running around looking something like a cross between Mick Jagger in the high camp days and Sigourney Weaver in Ghostbusters, desperate only to either get laid or kill. I can't agree with commentators who insist that the film has anything profound to say about passion-repressed or realized-other than the absolute basics (passion is a two-sided metaphor, and an even more complex emotion), but when the orchestra and choir get going it's tremendous, and Dr. Frank N. Furter singing "give yourself over/to absolute pleasure" wouldn't be any less appropriate. There are plenty of ideas of all sorts being thrown around, and for such an original work it should be palatable to a broad spectrum of humanity in its many forms, vulgar and enlightened (as if the terms actually mean anything in and of themselves, or encompass anything at all).
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