CINECITY multi-sensory screening: Black Narcissus

Sunday, November 12 · 3 – 5:30pm GMT

Black Narcissus , 1947 , 1hr 40 mins, PG

As part of the BFI’s Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell and Pressburger season, a multi-sensory screening, including aroma, of the acclaimed Black Narcissus.

Exotic, wild and full of colour, Powell and Pressburger’s psychological drama is now widely regarded as a masterpiece. Based on the novel by Rumer Godden first published in 1939, a small group of nuns is sent to establish a new convent in an abandoned palace in a remote and vertiginous part of the Himalayas. Aiming for a ‘fairytale’ India, Powell decided to make it a studio production ‘to create and control the atmosphere from start to finish’ so all the interiors were shot at Pinewood Studios with some filming at the verdant Leonardslee Gardens in West Sussex. Their role in this landmark of British cinema will be celebrated as part of this year’s Leonardslee Illuminated, which runs from 24 November to 21 December in the Gardens.

The novel and film both take their name from the perfume ‘Narcisse Noir’ which was created by our collaborators the perfume house of Caron in Paris in 1911. Beloved by Gloria Swanson, Serge Diaghilev and Dita Von Teese, in this film about the fantasies of nuns, it will unmistakably evoke the essence of femininity, daring and sensuality.