**_Stuck between the carnal and the celestial in the southern Himalayas_**

A group of well-meaning nuns try to establish a nunnery beyond Darjeeling in northeast India at a dilapidated palace-on-the-heights that used to house a harem. Deborah Kerr plays the Sister Superior while David Farrar appears as the agent to the local prince.

Based on the 1939 novel, “Black Narcissus” (1947) is a psychological drama with the interesting milieu of the awe-inspiring northern India. Being shot in the UK, the scenery is a well-done illusion created in the studio via glass shots and hanging miniatures. The backdrops are enlarged B&W photos, which the art department spruced-up with breathtaking colors using pastel chalks.

While Kerr’s beauty is showcased in the flashbacks, it’s Kathleen Byron who stands out on this front in the last act; she’s breathtaking. Meanwhile Jean Simmons is fetching as a native lass who catches the attentions of the “general” (Sabu); she was only 17 during shooting. On the other side of the spectrum, Farrar does well as the hairy-chested sigma male.

The sets, backdrops and cast are a visual delight, yet the subtexts on the human condition in a fallen world are just as interesting. All of us have to walk the balance beam between the profane and the precious, settling where we think best at any moment. It’s no coincidence that Clodagh (Kerr) and Ruth (Bryon) are similar-looking redheads underneath their habits and they’re both in an unspoken competition with their carnal side stirred by a certain person.

“Black Narcissus” wisely takes the lowkey route. We know what’s going on underneath the surface, but it’s not spelled out. Lesser flicks require a passionate sex scene to ‘wow’ the viewer whereas this one opts for the simple-but-potent clasping of hands.

The movie runs 1 hour, 41 minutes, and was shot at Pinewood Studios, west of London, with some forest scenes done south of London in Lower Beeding, Horsham, West Sussex. The Ireland sequences were shot in County Galway on the Emerald Isle.

GRADE: B+/A-