IN THE LATE ’40s, the British directing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger made two delirious, well-on-to-hallucinogenic Technicolor films in which the vibrant (vibrating almost) saturated colors were as much a part of the emotional texture of the stories as the acting. Of course, faded prints can’t convey the true spectacle of Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948), which is why these two Criterion releases, immaculately and lovingly restored, are so valuable to film fans.
In Black Narcissus, a group of nuns, led by tightly wound Deborah Kerr, venture to a Himalayan redoubt that once housed harem girls but has now been granted to the church. High atop an impossible precipice where the wind never stops howling, the nuns succumb to stirrings of Eastern sensuality, particularly in the form of the only man in sight: rakish, devil-may-care Mr. Dean (David Farrar). Worst hit of all is sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron), who flips entirely, emerging from the cocoon of her white wimple as a red-lipped, red-dressed seductress in a breathtaking transformation. Without shooting a frame in India, this studio-bound production, thanks to Jack Cardiff’s cinematography, manages to be a completely convincing dip into the fever-dream of the British obsession with the Raj. The disc includes two excellent making-of features with enlightening interviews with Cardiff and Byron.
Black Narcissus
The Red Shoes
Criterion
$39.95 each
