Wes Anderson may have single-handedly brought back interior design (look closely enough and you’ll notice that the lamp fixtures in The Royal Tenenbaums incline at an angle equivalent to that of Owen Wilson’s nose), but Powell and Pressburger will always be masters of the dollhouse as far as I’m concerned.

The new kid tends to relay Sirk for the bangs-generation – hip mannequins underemoting, death by IKEA. Black Narcissus may be the most ‘Sirkian’ film P&P ever made, though it never fully gives in, drifting instead between polarizing self-awareness and theatrical abandonment. The overall effect is something akin to Himalayan tourist-porn glimpsed through a snowglobe: magma blues commingle incestuously with reds, creating a landscape that’s like a fleshy phantom. It’s enough to incite jungle fever, which is exactly what happens when a gaggle of tight-lipped nuns lay eyes on the brusque, darkie-friendly Mr. Dean. Even if the natives remain third-world footnotes to first-world libidos, the eventual breakdown of Christian Imperialism should help appease agitated liberal consciences. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always Sister Ruth’s transformation into gothic sex vamp: it marks the guttural, moonlit howl of an Other that exists only within.—David Levinson

» Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger | UK | 1947