A Passage to India (1984)
Set during the period of growing influence of the Indian independence movement in the British Raj, the story begins with the arrival in India of a British woman, Miss Adela Quested, who is joining her fiancé, a city magistrate named Ronny Heaslop. She and Ronny's mother, Mrs. Moore, befriend an Indian doctor, Aziz H. Ahmed.
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As a person who read the novel, I didn't find it successful in relation with the subject matter of the story. This expedition to the caves was actually an expedition to the darkest points of Adela's character. However, the movie was a failure in reflecting that. I didn't quite like the movie.
David Lean's last film "A Passage to India" was far from his best but it was certainly an improvement over both "Doctor Zhivago" and "Ryan's Daughter". Lean himself wrote the script, (and edited the picture), from E M. Forster's novel and it's an intelligent as well as a fairly sumptuous epic, magnificently shot by Ernest Day and very well cast with the obvious exception of Alec Guinness in brown face as an Indian Brahmin. It's not actually a bad performance and yet there is something vaguely offensive in having a white English actor 'blacked up' when there were so many very talented Indian actors available. On the other hand, you certainly can't fault Judy Davis as Adela, Peggy Ashcroft as Mrs Moore or Victor Banerjee as Dr Aziz.Ashcroft is magnificent. She won several awards for this role, including the Oscar and there's excellent work from a first-rate supporting cast. At 164 minutes it's a little on the long side; it was as if, after "The Bridge on the River Kwai", Lean found it impossible to keep things tight. Nevertheless, this did mark something of a return to form and it doesn't disgrace the great novel on which it is based.
Different, strange and slow. Long road to the platеаu over which the karma is bringing you in Indian way and the destiny in European. It does not matter how hard you try the outcome is always getting there. Where you might ask? Close to yourself.This movie touches historical and political themes, even its naivety it represent the difficulty of human relationships provoked by youth and uncertain future. Shortly lived, the protagonists had parts of their past in them which navigate their behavior. Only when these parts are well milled by the mills of experience and building strong individuality they will find peace.The action is taking in beautiful places in oriental India that is opposed to well behaved England. It is questioned which view for what is right is right and can be called objectively such.By leaving aside that I literally tried to help a boat at the end of the movie to become faster and the frequent use of the rain as a symbol of the life little streams that we all live and that are coming with the rain and going to the endless ocean, the movie is nice because it shows which are the values that are left at the end and which behavior is making sense at any point.http://vihrenmitevmovies.blogspot.com/
As a Pole living and working in Arctic Siberian tundra, I developed a particular passion for quality history movies, especially period sagas related to the Colonial Age of the British Empire. This movie contains two mega-themes: 1. The culture/status clash between the Britons and the Indians; 2. The suppressed sexuality in two main protagonists - an English lady and an Indian medic. Both mega-themes are developed to a climax. The suppressed sexuality mega-theme raises the issue of dignity and self-control of a human being and of a foundation, possibly religion, on which these can be sustained. Speaking about the technicalities, I would note the titanic effort to fill the mass scenes with believable characters, beautiful cinematography and the great effort to reproduce the Victorian India ambiance.