This Sunday 6pm
In the upper gallery. Film notes by Rick Wilson and snacks begin after 5.

From the novel by Rumer Godden, Black Narcissus takes its name from the sensual fragrance worn by the young General Dilip Rai. Tempting as it might be to focus on the story of the nuns and a certain Mr. Dean, please do pay attention to this young General. His role is a key. He arrives at the nunnery, newly established high up in the Himalayas, to request education. “I’m very sorry,” says Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), “We only teach children and young girls.” “Why?” “A Convent doesn’t take men pupils.” “That’s not very polite to men .... Jesus Christ was a man.” “He took the shape of a man,” she said. The dialogue is true to the book, written in 1939 with wonderfully subtle humor, grace and uncanny perspective. Author Rumer Godden grew up in India and wrote repeatedly on themes of ignorance, innocence and growing up. She found nuns to be “irresistibly dramatic.” During her life, she survived a homicide attempt, rare illnesses, the death of a baby son, abandonment by her first husband and destitution, in the course of a writing career that spanned more than 60 years.

Director Michael Powell had his eye on the novel for some time before it became this brilliant technological explosion of color film. The casting is another tale of couch-hopping talent. Godden thought the film an abomination, vastly preferring her later experience with Jean Renoir, on an adaptation of her novel The River (1951).

The basic choice of background of this story invites notice as well. The British occupation of India ended, and is reflected by the nuns leaving the site, having gained neither an understanding of nor acceptance by it or its people.