‘ Narcissus’ remake falls short of film
The BBC has remade “Black Narcissus” into a threeepisode miniseries — and comparisons to the 1947 movie version are, regrettably, called for.
Premiering on FX on Monday, Nov. 23, and streaming via FX on Hulu the next day, this adaptation is, as Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s Technicolor masterpiece was, pretty faithful to Indiaraised Rumer Godden’s novel about Catholic nuns going nutty in a highHimalayan convent.
Parts of the miniseries were filmed in Nepal. Charlotte Bruus Christensen, the director of all the episodes, is an accomplished cinematographer from Denmark whose fine work can be seen in such films as “A Quiet Place” and “Fences.” Her “Narcissus” is undeniably pleasant to look at and even striking at times, like in the wintry sequence that bridges the second and third chapters.
Yet, for 73 years, cinematographer Jack Cardiff’s blend of saturated hues, faithdisrupting shadows and expert closeups, along with the older production’s vertiginous, instudio background paintings, has been considered a visual Mount Everest. Quite deservedly so; few films have ever felt as sensuous and woozy.
A few of the movie’s renowned shots were recreated, but Christensen was wise not to try too hard to recapture its singular look. The more natural, pastel palette she’s chosen, however, appears kind of washed out by comparison.
A similar thing can be said for the TV show’s characterizations and drama. Although everything is presented more directly than it was in the discreet 1940s, the repressed emotions, as well as their outbursts, fail to stir blood as effectively.
The hard thing to criticize here is the cast, made up of uniformly fine contemporary actors we adore, but who just don’t happen to be Deborah Kerr, David Farrar, Kathleen Byron, Sabu or miscastbuteffective Jean Simmons, a murderers’ row of late British Empire players if there ever was one.
The always game Gemma Arterton (“Summerland,” “Tamara Drewe”) takes on the formidable task of stepping into the Kerr role, Clodagh. She’s the ambitious sister superior in charge of opening a school for village girls in a crumbling palace that used to house a Himalayan prince’s harem. Clodagh’s capable and knows it, so probably a bit too into the sin of pride. For a nun, she’s definitely way too into erotic thoughts of the man back in Ireland who loved her and left her. For Kerr, those flashbacks were more emotional than carnal.
“The wind keeps me up at night,” the character lies as Arterton grows progressively frail and paler.
Gen. Toda Rai ( Kulvinder Ghir) donated his father’s seraglio to the church years after his sister jumped off of the building’s bell tower. It’s no easy place to get up and running. Some sisters, especially the unstable Ruth ( Aisling Franciosi, riveting here as she was in the Australian revenge bloodbath “The
Nightingale”), have visions of the dead woman, while the whole place haunts the celibates with reminders of its former purpose.
Plus, it needs a lot of work — plumbing repair, a new chapel built — which only the general’s English agent and allaround manly man, Mr. Dean ( Alessandro Nivola), seems capable of getting done. Clearly a cad and an atheist, Dean clashes with Sister Clodagh over just about everything, while bringing their faces closer together with each new argument.
“You’re confusing spirituality with religion, Sister,” he tells her at one point. “They’re not the same thing at all. In fact, from what I’ve observed, the two are rather mutually exclusive.”
Not the most profound observation, but certainly an apt one for this story. The teleplay by Amanda Coe, who worked on the original British “Shameless” series, is obvious in that way.
Anyway, all the ladies dig Dean, and that leads Sister Ruth down another troublesome path. Franciosi’s clashes with Arterton are the show’s most reliable highlights, as was the case with Kerr and Byron in the original.
The late Diana Rigg doesn’t have enough scenes as the order’s mother superior back in
Darjeeling. Then again, could we ever get enough of her now that she’s gone? As the abused local girl, Kanchi, whom the nuns take in, Nepalese actress Dipika Kunwar is not Jean Simmons in any way; it’s a good casting choice. The old Sabu role of Dilip Rai, the warlord’s charming nephew who gets Kanchi in trouble and wears the cologne the book was named after, is played by Chaneil Kular ( Netflix’s “Sex Education”).
That and a bit more flesh are as far as the new production goes toward modern attitudes. Though some have interpreted the Powell/ Pressburger film as an allegory for Britain’s colonial retreat ( it came out the year India gained independence), it was still overwhelmingly about white people’s problems in what they considered an exotic, backward locale. Unquestionably, the English Godden knew what she knew about South Asia, and staying faithful to her viewpoint seems justifiable. But if Christensen and company saw fit to up the sexy stuff, it seems strange that they didn’t rethink the story’s Eurocentric sensibilities a little.