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Dec 14, 2014Nursebob rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Directors Powell and Pressburger’s gothic melodrama is one of the most strikingly photographed Technicolor marvels the British film industry has ever produced. The interplay of light and shadow, bathed in rich primary colours, lends a painterly quality to their work which often borders on pure expressionism. Choosing to film the entire epic on a UK soundstage rather than on location, they maintain a firm sense of artistic control which sees the wonders of northern India transformed into a series of psychological metaphors and plumbs each scene for its most primitive emotional content whether it be Mother Superior ringing the morning bell while perched on the edge of an abyss, or the increasingly neurotic Sister Ruth smearing crimson lipstick across her mouth. This constant juxtaposition between the sacred and the subtly erotic, tinged with elements both tragic and horrific, make for an exhilarating cinematic experience which has not dimmed in the intervening sixty-five years. A masterpiece.