So it’s 1947 and… something’s in the air.
Written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Black Narcissus outwardly uses breathtaking sets and cinematography to hint at the inner conflicts of a host of characters.
A company of Anglican nuns are attempting to set up a colonial school and hospital in what used to be the palace-home of a general’s harem. Tensions begin to mount once the nuns experience strange illnesses and are overcome by unfamiliar—and perhaps illicit—emotions.
The incessant wind becomes a metaphor for what seems unexplainable and unstoppable. This combination of setting and circumstance brings about a mood of strange love in multiple corners of the story.
And when tragedy strikes, the result is a head-on collision between madness and erotic awakening that—very literally—sends one character over the edge…