A Passage to India
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.92 You Save: $13.07 (65%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $5.50 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of A Passage to India
Movie Review: STIRRING LAST FILM BY DIRECTOR DAVID LEAN
Summary: 4 Stars
"A Passage to India" is based on the E.M. Forrester novel and it follows the exploits of two British women, one - Mrs. Moore, a rich dowager, the other, Ms. Quested, her soon-to-be daughter-in-law. However, when a young East Indian doctor suggests a picnic and tour of some mysterious caves, a string of events take place that threaten the social justice and stability of relations between the British colonialists and the Indians. Director David Lean illustrates for us once more why he's the master of such epic styled movies. Stars Sir Alec Guiness, James Fox and Dame Peggy Ashcroft - who won the Oscar for her performance.Columbia Tristar has given us a very handsome looking print of this sweeping story. Colors are rich and strong. Blacks are black. Contrast levels and shadows are well represented. There is some extremely minor aliasing and fine detail shimmering that occasionally happens but does not distract from the visual presentation. Pixelization crops up now and then but again, does not distract. Sonically - the audio is 2.0 surround and nicely represented, though in several spots it does suggest a very forward sounding characteristic that seems unnatural. No extras but hey, this is a very suitable and attractive effort in remastering from Columbia. One only wishes such attention had been paid to Lean's other masterpiece - "Lawrence of Arabia" (see my review).
Movie Review: Last Passage
Summary: 4 Stars
Director David Lean created some of the most visually stunning and brilliant films in movie history. The final film of his illustrious career was 1984's A Passage To India. The film is again a marvel to look at as Mr. Lean captures the Indian landscape with all its mystical splendor. Judy Davis is alluring as a young woman who travels to India with her perspective mother-in-law to visit her fiancé who is a magistrate there. On a cave exploring trip, she involved in a mix-up with Victor Banerjee's Dr. Aziz that leads to a court case and the revealing of the racial divide between the natives of India and the British who rule the country. Peggy Ashcroft won an Oscar as the all-knowing Mrs. Moore and long time Lean collaborator Maurice Jarre won an Oscar for his score. Alec Guinness appears in one of the most bizarre roles of his career as an Indian professor (complete with an Indian accent and dispensing of mystical preachings). A Passage To India is a strong closing film in the career of a respected and revered filmmaker.Movie Review: A beautiful transfer of David Lean's last film
Summary: 4 Stars
What a treat to see "A Passage to India" on DVD! David Lean's final film hasn't looked this terrific since it was first shown in theaters in 1984. The colors are rich and vibrant and resonate with the texture of India. And, it's letterboxed!The only thing missing is a digital 5.1 soundtrack. You'll have to make do with simple Dolby Surround, but the soundtrack is clean and full (and Maurice Jarre's score comes through beautifully). There aren't many extras either: a few trailers and eight minutes of tape from an interview with Lean.
"A Passage to India" is the story of Adele Quested's journey of discovery through the sensory (and sensual) delights of India. Lean loved India and it shows in every frame of this fascinating film.
What really happens to Miss Quested in the Marabar caves? Who can say? As Mrs. Moore, Mis Quested's traveling companion says, "India forces one to come face-to-face with oneself. The results can be disturbing." That mystery is the core of the film.
Enjoy!
Movie Review: A classic movie
Summary: 4 Stars
This movie will keep your interest throughout, both through its plot and its very good cinematography. Racism, friendship and human values are some of the strongest points that come out of this movie, which will get the viewer acquainted with some exotic scenery in India. Well transferred into the DVD, well worth seeing.Movie Review: Rite of Passage
Summary: 3 Stars
David Lean's A Passage to India tells the story of a young girl in the 1920s who comes to India to marry her fiance, a colonial judge. She is strongly influenced by the man's mother, with whom she travels, and who is a wise and independent woman who can see clearly beyond the cultural differences she experiences with both Indian and English.
The girl finds the system overwhelming, stiffling, and her fiance rather pompous. She does not love him. He represents position, social acceptance, yet it is she who cannot accept the society in which she finds herself. She goes on an expedition to a local cave where she and her fiance's mother experience something unclear which deeply disturbs her. As a consequence, she accuses her Indian companion of rape, only to withdraw the charge during court proceedings. She loses the acceptance of the racist AngloIndian society as a result, is befriended by a colonial officer friendly to the Indians, and goes back to England, where she remains, alone and disturbed, unhappy, while in India the man she accused rebuilds his life, marries and has children, and is visited by the friendly administrator, who has also married and whose wife is expecting a child.
As an expression of being alone and unhappy in a world where everyone else seems happy and adapted this is an interesting case study, and revealing of Forster's psyche. As a novel it can work because the emotional force of words can bridge the gap between what happens within and what happens without.
In the film, however, we are left with an event, the occurrence within the caves, to tie social and psychological strands together. I found the episode extremely unclear. The caves scene I thought so much filmic mumbo-jumbo. I suspect Lean did not know what to do so he followed the book instead of creating it's cinematic equivalent.
The scene at the caves is important. It brings out the contrast between the strong cultural and religious integration of the Indian society and the empty formalism with which the English hid their drive for power. It concentrates all the indefinable yearnings for meaning and fulfillment that the character played by Davis feels and resolves them in a tragic way. Lean merely shows us panic on the faces of the two women and a strange rumbling sound. As a pivot of the plot and a key to understanding character it is entirely inadequate.
Lean's films mentioned here all have the same faults. Rambling, unformed, slow, indulgent, full of digressions. The main points of the story are always at risk of being lost in irrelevancies. All films approach three hours in length. I found Ryan's Daughter unwatchable (unlike say Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, which is difficult because it is long). Passage makes most of its points in its final half hour. Interminable time is spent in showing India, the Raj, Colonial society and so on and the effort never gets far beyond cliche. The cave scene falters between a ridiculous symbolism and a depiction of manners both obscure in themselves and dated. The film could have been updated by bringing out the sexual repression behind the main character's actions or commenting on the racism, not focusing on the social scandal.
Lean's other films such as Lawrence and Zhivago succeed by juxtaposing personal dramas on political ones. He films by feeling his way to what he wants to do. Of course neither public nor private dramas are explored with great insight, but the pace of events engages the viewer's emotions through conventional cinematic stereotypes. In Zhivago the Revolution is there, sweeping a whole society away; in Lawrence the War is there, exalting then using Lawrence until he becomes meaningless to himself. By contrast, in Ryan the Rebellion is not there, only hinted at by melodramatic ruffians who merely utter the rhetoric. In Passage the Raj is only there through native policemen beating helpless Indians with sticks while the residents eat cucumber sandwiches.
Lean's films are simple affairs, relying on populist melodrama for their effect. They aspire to more, to a philosophical value. But without proper context they achieve only attitudinising. Ryan and Passage are weaker than Zhivago and Lawrence because the Rebellion and the Raj are not fully realised in the films and so don't reinforce the alienation and helplessness of human nature in a wider context. Lean's highly coloured psychosocial melodramas need a highly coloured context.
Passage works, but only just. Lean's direction is too dispersed, the context is too splendidly scenic and static and the plot breaks down during the obscure scene at the cave. The film survives all this due to the strength of its acting, which makes real people of all these characters. Davis' expressiveness and understatement go a long way to restoring the film's meaning. Banerjee's portrayal, which neatly expresses the whole Indian attitude to the Raj, focuses the social context. But an actor has command of only part of a film.
Perhaps it would have been better had Lean not written the script. His other films were written by Robert Bolt.
It is a film that has wonderful technique. Camera and acting are supreme, although editing is slow. Visually arresting, there is nothing to bring the parts together into a whole.
What I remember is the acting. Every cast member is superb. Judy Davis has an impossible job to do in depicting the sexual tensions and dissatisfactions of her age, her sex and her period, and has very limited opportunities of expression given her by the script, but does a remarkable job even so. Her last scene, merely an expression on her face seen through a window, is exquisitely done. Bannerjee and Fox are never for a moment unbelievable. Ashcroft and Guinness survive impressively some rather silly dialogue given them.
I figited through it, and have written at length on it!