A Passage to India, director David Lean's final film (for which he also received editing credit), breaks no new ground cinematically, but remains an exquisitely assembled harkback to such earlier Lean epics as Doctor Zhivago and Ryan's Daughter. Based on the novel by E. M. Forster, the film is set in colonial India in 1924. Adela Quested (Judy Davis), a sheltered, well-educated British woman, arrives in the town of Chandrapore, where she hopes to experience "the real India". Here she meets and
befriends Dr. Aziz (Victor Banerjee), who, despite longstanding racial and social taboos, moves with relative ease and freedom amongst highborn British circles. Feeling comfortable with Adela, Aziz invites her to accompany him on a visit to the Marabar caves. Adela has previously exhibited bizarre, almost mystical behavior during other ventures into the Indian wilderness: this time, she emerges from the caves showing signs of injury and ill usage. To Aziz' horror, he is accused by Adela of raping her. Typically, the British ruling class rallies to Adela's defense, virtually convicting Aziz before the trial ever begins. Though he is eventually acquitted due to lack of evidence (in fact, director Lean never shows us what really happened), Aziz is ruined in the eyes of both the British and his own people-as is Adela. Woven into these proceedings is a subplot involving Adela's elderly travelling companion Mrs. Moore (Peggy Ashcroft), who through a series of plot twists too complex to describe here becomes a heroine of the Indian Independence movement. A Passage to India was nominated for several Academy Awards, scoring wins in the categories of Best Supporting Actress (Peggy Ashcroft) and Best Original Score (Maurice Jarre). A theatrical version of A Passage to India, written by Santha Rama Rau, was previously adapted for television by the BBC in the mid-1970s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
David Lean's studied, plodding, overanalytic direction manages to kill most of the meaning in E.M. Forster's haunting novel of cultural collision in colonial India.
Forster's novel is one of the literary landmarks of this century, and now David Lean has made it into one of the greatest screen adaptations I have ever seen.
Regardless of what one thinks of David Lean and his old fashioned style, the results here - save perhaps for the casting of Alec Guinness as a Hindu professor - are exquisite.
Lean's visually appealing film frequently connects as a social satire and a mystical melodrama of transgressors looking for footholds in psychically threatening territory.
A Passage to India is a visual treat, but it's also the kind of epic that seems painted on a small enough canvas to where it resonates as incident and fable as much as it reflects a grander theme.
Lean's swan song is an intelligent adaptation of Forster's complex novel about racil prejudice and sexual repression, flaunting wonderful perfromances from the two leads, Judy Davis and particularly Dame Peggy Ashcroft.
The first half of the movie was relatively watchable but the second half was appalling. Why would a woman accuse someone of raping her, and why in God's name would she withdraw it only when she's called to the witness box, is beyond me. Okay, it's because she's honest and she couldn't accept someone being unjustly
crucified for a crime that was never committed. So she withdraws everything only and only when she's called to the witness box. Applause for the lady's courage!!! I can understand that she may have made such an accusation because she wasn't well when she made it and might have done so under someone's influence. But at least after recovery, she could have taken back the false charges. Her conscience was probably on leave during the earlier proceedings of the court. The range of my imagination is quite poor at times. I know that such a dramatization is essential to create a greater effect for the movie, but the way this particular part was executed was very poor. Anyway, I liked the way characters were developed and the interactions between them. I'd also like to mention that except for that idiotic part in the movie, I found the rest of the movie well done. Victor Banerjee sucked as Dr. Aziz while Alec Guinness excelled as Godbole, a veteran with foresight and better understanding of the human life.
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