A Passage to India (1984)

A Passage to India is a British-American period drama film first released in 1984, directed by David Lean.  The film is based on a novel by E.M. Forster and stars Judy Davis, Victor Banerjee, Peggy Ashcroft, James Fox and Alec Guinness.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


In the 1920s, Adela Quested makes the journey from England to India, where she intends to marry her fiancé, Ronny Heaslop, the magistrate of a provincial town named Chandrapore.  She is accompanied by Heaslop’s elderly mother, Mrs Moore, who, having barely set foot in the country, becomes disgusted by the way in which the local population suffer under British colonialism.  Soon after their arrival, the two Englishwomen get to know Professor Godbole, an amiable if eccentric Brahmin scholar, and school superintendent Richard Fielding.  One evening, Mrs Moore strays from a club for British residents and enters a mosque.  Here she meets Aziz Ahmed, a local doctor, who responds warmly to her courtesy and complete lack of racial prejudice.  Having grown tired of the anglicised version of India, Mrs Moore and Adela declare that they want to see the country as it really is.  They are delighted when Aziz offers to take them to the Marabar Caves, a place that few British ever visit.  The well-planned excursion ends disastrously.  On her return to Chandrapore, Adela insists that Aziz attempted to rape her.  The only person that can help Dr Aziz now is Mrs Moore, but she is already on her way back to England...

What better way to end a glorious filmmaking career than with a superlative adaptation of a 20th Century literary masterpiece?  Incredible to think that David Lean was 75 when he made A Passage to India, a film that combines the epic scale of his previous great films with the intimacy of a poignant drama concerned with the twin demons of racial prejudice and sexual repression, set in the declining years of the British Raj.  Far better received than Lean’s previous film, Ryan’s Daughter, made fourteen years earlier, this blockbuster swansong was nominated for eleven Oscars and won awards in two categories: Best Support Actress (Peggy Ashcroft) and Best Score (Maurice Jarre).

A Passage to India is not David Lean’s greatest film, perhaps because it tries a little to hard to match up to the standards of the director’s previous monolithic works, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962).  The film is overlong, somewhat plodding in its first half and lacks the almost manic intensity that ignites E.M. Forster’s classic novel.  But, whilst not perfect, it still manages to be a beguiling, deeply moving film, peppered with moments of exquisite visual poetry.

The cinematography is excellent, as you would expect from a David Lean film, vividly evoking the location and the era in which the story takes place.  The film boasts some terrific performances from a magnificent cast, with Judy Davis and Victor Banerjee both totally convincing as the two main protagonists who have to confront and overcome their latent racial predjudices.  The only false note on the acting front is Alec Guinness’s portrayal of a native Indian, which leaves a queasy aftertaste and would now be considered by some to be a grotesque example of racial caricature.   The lynchpin of the film is Peggy Ashcroft, whose startlingly humanist portrayal of the colour-blind Mrs Moore provides one of cinema’s most powerful broadsides against racial intolerance.

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