A Passage to India (1984)
A Passage to India (1984)
A Film by David Lean
DVD9 | ISO+MDS | PAL 16:9 (720x576) | 02:37:00 | 7,87 Gb
Audio: English AC3 5.1 @ 448 Kbps; French, Spanish - AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps (each track)
Subs: English SDH, French, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Danish, Portuguese, Greek
Genre: Adventure, Drama | Won 2 Oscars + 18 wins | UK, USA
A Film by David Lean
DVD9 | ISO+MDS | PAL 16:9 (720x576) | 02:37:00 | 7,87 Gb
Audio: English AC3 5.1 @ 448 Kbps; French, Spanish - AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps (each track)
Subs: English SDH, French, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Danish, Portuguese, Greek
Genre: Adventure, Drama | Won 2 Oscars + 18 wins | UK, USA
Adventurous and curious, young Englishwoman Adela Quested (Judy Davis) travels with the open-minded Mrs. Moore (Peggy Ashcroft) to Chandrapore, India, perhaps to marry up-and-coming colonial judge Ronny Heaslop (Nigel Havers). Both newcomers are distressed by the boorish and hateful attitudes of the ruling British, and when her fiancé proves to be a similar 'Sahib' snob, Adela considers breaking off her engagement. But Mrs. Moore has a delightful encounter with muslim doctor Aziz (Victor Banerjee) in a mosque, and with the help of local professor Richard Fielding (James Fox) they're soon meeting other Indians like the odd Professor Godbole (Alec Guinness) and learning more about this strange new country. Adela finds herself having emotional reactions to most everything, until an elaborate picnic in the hills puts her in the 'improper' position of being alone with the equally emotional, romantic Doctor Aziz. Conflicting sensations of culture and sex can have dire consequences, even in a rational person…
IMDB
David Lean is at the top of his form in A Passage to India, his last movie. The film is crisp, fast moving, technically assured. Its scale is well judged, fielding epic-like crowd scenes when needed but mostly focusing on its interesting, complicated group of characters. Even Maurice Jarre's music is under control, after the (enjoyable) overstatement of Ryan's Daughter.
A Passage to India (1984)
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More than his earlier works, Passage is delicately balanced between the literary and cinematic form. Lean is not afraid to communicate through dialogue, but time and again his images are what make you feel what he wants you to feel - the heat and dust of Chandrapore, the cleanness of the mountains. Best of all, Lean uses visual symbols with breathtaking ease. In one of the best-edited scenes, Lean communicates Adela's sexual fear in a confrontation with erotic sculptures and a horde of very non-cute monkeys. She's never even in the same frame with a monkey, yet Lean makes us feel their threat. Monkeys show up at several key moments in the movie, and seem to represent the savagery and sexual chaos that the British fear in the Indian culture.
A Passage to India (1984)
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Mrs. Moore is haunted by visions of the moon – reflected in the Ganges at night and glowing through sunglasses at noon – that seem to represent Death. When she speaks a portentious line about meaningless oblivion in the universe, we are given a vision of the dead lunar world that David Lynch would envy. Her eventual fate is communicated in a classic image that combines the text of Forster with the theme of reincarnation. When Mrs. Moore's daughter finally appears there's a curious sensation of multigenerational harmony. Shorter than the average epic, A Passage to India impresses with its depth of feeling, not with its 'bigness.'
A Passage to India (1984)
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Lean's casting is flawless. Australian Judy Davis makes a perfect Adela Quested, and it's nice to see the underused James Fox in such a sensitive role. Alec Guiness' imitation of an Indian is more than acceptable, and thankfully doesn't clash with the many real Indians who give the movie its sense of veracity. There are 'noble' natives and crass ones, educated and stupid. Godbode is something of a ditz and the defending counsel is a political schemer. Aziz and his friends are as awkward in their fawning toward the British, as some of the Brits are transparent with their contempt. It's nice to see Saeed Jaffrey of The Man Who Would be King in a small role. As Doctor Aziz, Victor Bannerjee should have won an Oscar. Expressive and intensely human, he is everything the handsome Omar Sharif was not in Zhivago.
A Passage to India (1984)
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Many of David Lean's best pictures investigate the clash of cultural values, handling subjects as loaded as Japanese-English relations in WW2 with impressive sensitivity when other British pictures (such as Hammer's Camp on Blood Island) were still rank with racist outrage. Lean's handling of the issue of India and the Empire is also exemplary. Black Narcissus had been poetical in suggesting that perhaps England would be better off packing up and leaving; Passage shows the wrongness of the situation through little details, mostly of colonial attitudes both Indian and English. 1 Watching this movie, we feel we learn something real about a people and place at a specific moment in time. It's an enriching experience.
A Passage to India (1984)
![A Passage to India (1984)]()
Passage has its share of shock and tragedy but the mellow feeling left with the viewer is that time indeed heals wounds and that wisdom can be learned through hard experience. Lean's previous four epics all concerned themselves with people in wartime, under extraordinary stress. Here the fates might turn on a simple misunderstanding or details as small as someone loaning another person a 'back collar stud.' The film's intimacy makes it extraordinarily deep for an 'epic.'
A Passage to India (1984)
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Savant has heard the film criticized for its pace, which is a puzzle, because the movie really moves along at a brisk clip. When it does pause, it's to slow down a bit to appreciate a moment or meditate on a thought. There is heavy drama in the movie that hinges on events affected by strong emotion, even sexual hysteria. But Lean doesn't get hysterical. Human relationships possess an 'unknowable' element, and Passage sometimes takes its time to acknowledge this unknowable factor. A Passage to India might just be the most profound of Lean's 'epic' quintet.
A Passage to India (1984)
Extras: Theatrical trailer only
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