Black Narcissus

Jack Cardiff’s skillful camera work (which won him an Oscar) allows Powell and Pressburger to reach delirious heights of psychosexual melodrama. When young Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) opens a school and hospital deep in the northern Indian wilderness, she and her fellow nuns find an environment unfriendly to self-restraint. As their liaison to the local villagers states: “There’s something in the atmosphere that makes everything seem exaggerated.” Though shot almost entirely on a London set, the film feels bathed in soft, natural mountain light. Thus, a sudden shock of color—vibrant murals, blood and lipstick in deep crimson—is all the more jolting.