In the Lyttelton Theatre at the National, Federico García Lorca’s play The House of Bernarda Alba stars Penelope Wilton as a fiendish matriarch in charge of five febrile daughters in mourning for their dead father. Just a stone’s throw away, at the National Film Theatre, is a newly minted digital print of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1947 classic film Black Narcissus. These are, quite simply, two of the greatest works of art about repression yet made.

The venerable Jack Cardiff, now aged 90 and happily living in Paris, won an Oscar for his “color cinematography” on the Pinewood epic. The director Michael Powell, who died in 1990, admitted that it was the most erotic film experience of his life. In actual fact, Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) was far more disturbing, but few know the secrets of that film, and as we grow ever more nostalgic and iron maiden-ish about the past I doubt many will remember the controversy.

I live in hope that Howard Davies’s production of The House of Bernarda Alba might strike a timely tune, but I may be plucking in vain. The sad fact about Powell — says David Thomson, an influential admirer, critic, and formerly a personal friend of the director — is that “he was written off as an eccentric decorator of fantasies”. Frankly, I don’t think this is true.

Powell and Pressburger might be regarded by some as one of the stodgiest football teams of the 20th century after delivering films such as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), but the two film- makers are brilliant about colonial airs and graces. They cobbled films together in a country (Britain) that was emotionally stunted.

The theme of Black Narcissus is terribly brutal, and very, very English. A handful of nuns are shipped north from a dull place in India to a Himalayan castle — once a boudoir to an Indian prince — to teach wisdom and manners to the local natives. The stumbling block is an Empire bounder called Mr Dean (David Farrar), who wears a tight pair of khaki shorts and unbuttoned short-sleeved shirts. By the end of the film he hardly bothers with clothes at all.

I like Farrar’s suave and cynical stud. He’s a rum old soak from the pages of Joseph Conrad. He has sizzling green eyes and a comb-over quiff, and there isn’t a chance in hell that he will run out of pipe tobacco or whisky one-liners. He’s the daily attraction in this racy mountain outpost. But when push comes to shove he’s a mere detail in the shooting match between Deborah Kerr’s fabulously tight Sister Clodagh and Kathleen Byron’s psychotic Sister Ruth. There are poster shots of these two duelling queens that make the eyes water. Unspoken tensions flutter in the constant breeze.

Jealousy colours the picture as profoundly as pride and the perfumed flowers. The bottled sense of hysteria is quite unique. I’m not sure why that is. Studies of the film are choked with topical conjecture. There are cobwebs of references to iconographic and literary themes. Frankly I’ve seen better films about “the awakening of a buried sensuality” and better references than Jacques Tourneur’s I Walked with a Zombie .

One of the pioneering delights of Black Narcissus — the title, ironically, refers to a scent sold by the Army and Navy Stores in London — is simply the way every frame is painted. The retouching is exquisite. The clarity a genuine surprise. To see the film fully restored on the big screen is a rare joy.

Where to place Black Narcissus in the premiere league of best British films is an agonising call. There’s little debate about its merits, and endless argument about scenes and moments that it subsequently inspired. I doubt Powell and Pressburger had the slightest clue about how influential their collaboration would prove. In the 1940s, the Archers — the name of their lucrative production company — was the Marks & Spencer of British cinema. A quality brand that minted a succession of remarkable films including A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and The Red Shoes (1948) — still regarded as the ballet musical by which all others are measured.

Black Narcissus was a film they invented in their pomp. They dissolved the company in 1956 and, unusual in this business, parted as friends. Alone they never quite found their feet. But the treasures they left behind are now priceless.

BRIT FILM — YOU DECIDE

Question: What do you think is the best British film of all time?

Answers to: Black Narcissus, Screen, The Times, 1 Pennington Street, London, E98 1TT Or e-mail: Britishfilms@thetimes.co.uk View the results on www.timesonline.co.uk/film

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