Wouldn't "A Passage THROUGH India" Be More Appropriate?
This weekend's review: A Passage To India.
A Passage to India had been recommended to me by a family member, and while I trust their judgement, I was still a little wary. The movie was directed by David Lean, and while he does beautiful wide shots, his movies are often a little overlong and can thus become boring. While this particular movie does follow the overlong trend, clocking in at nearly three hours, it did avoid the boring pitfall. That being said, I’d probably classify it as “ok” rather than “good”.
Set at the beginning of the end of Britain’s rule over India (IMDB says it’s the 1920’s), the story revolves around Adela Quested (Judy Davis), a young woman who travels to India in order to reunite with Ronny Heaslop (Nigel Havers), the man she’s considering getting married to and is currently the magistrate of a town called Chandrapore. She’s accompanied by Ronny’s mother, Mrs. Moore (Peggy Ashcroft), and the two of them are excited by the prospect of going to India and having an adventure, only to be disappointed by the dismissive nature most of the British have towards India, its culture, and especially its people. They do, however, find some success when they meet up with a professor named Richard Fielding (James Fox), who introduces them both to his Indian colleague, Professor Godbole (Alec Guinness) and a doctor named Aziz (Victor Banerjee). Aziz even goes so far as to invite all four of them to an expedition to some nearby caves. Unfortunately, an incident in the caves leads to a court case, and the divide between the Brits and the Indians threatens to become an uncrossable chasm.
While I give the movie/Lean credit (he wrote the screenplay and did both the directing and the editing) for not getting annoyingly heavy-handed about it, the movie is still obviously a message piece about the treatment of India under British rule. As a result, most of the British characters are snotty and pretentious with very few if any positive qualities, while Fielding, Mrs. Moore, and Adela all come across as too good to be true with their enlightened attitudes. The audience may feel indignant about the behavior of the British, but it’s also obvious that the script and direction are manipulating you into feeling that way, and thus may make you feel annoyed at the manipulation. It’s not as bad as it could be, but it’s still noticeable and thus may dampen your enjoyment, especially if you don’t enjoy getting preached to.
If you can put that aside (which gets increasingly difficult, especially in the third act), the movie’s pretty decent. All the acting is good, although Alec Guinness playing an Indian man does raise a few eyebrows, especially nowadays. Lean’s trademark wide shots are excellent, especially his shots of trains. Despite the long runtime, the movie very rarely drags. My only complaint besides the preachiness is that some of the plot points revolving around Adela don’t always make a great deal of sense at face value and may leave you slightly confused until you read between the lines. I don’t mind it when a movie makes me stop and think, but I think the narrative could have given us an extra hint or two, especially where the third act is concerned.
Although this isn’t a movie I regret spending time with, I’m not sure I’d recommend it either. It highly depends on your tolerance for message movies; if you can look past the preaching, you’ll probably have a decent time watching it. If you can’t, I’m pretty sure there are plenty of other movies out there about adventures in India. And depending on when they were made, they may have even more spectacular visuals.
A Passage to India had been recommended to me by a family member, and while I trust their judgement, I was still a little wary. The movie was directed by David Lean, and while he does beautiful wide shots, his movies are often a little overlong and can thus become boring. While this particular movie does follow the overlong trend, clocking in at nearly three hours, it did avoid the boring pitfall. That being said, I’d probably classify it as “ok” rather than “good”.
Set at the beginning of the end of Britain’s rule over India (IMDB says it’s the 1920’s), the story revolves around Adela Quested (Judy Davis), a young woman who travels to India in order to reunite with Ronny Heaslop (Nigel Havers), the man she’s considering getting married to and is currently the magistrate of a town called Chandrapore. She’s accompanied by Ronny’s mother, Mrs. Moore (Peggy Ashcroft), and the two of them are excited by the prospect of going to India and having an adventure, only to be disappointed by the dismissive nature most of the British have towards India, its culture, and especially its people. They do, however, find some success when they meet up with a professor named Richard Fielding (James Fox), who introduces them both to his Indian colleague, Professor Godbole (Alec Guinness) and a doctor named Aziz (Victor Banerjee). Aziz even goes so far as to invite all four of them to an expedition to some nearby caves. Unfortunately, an incident in the caves leads to a court case, and the divide between the Brits and the Indians threatens to become an uncrossable chasm.
While I give the movie/Lean credit (he wrote the screenplay and did both the directing and the editing) for not getting annoyingly heavy-handed about it, the movie is still obviously a message piece about the treatment of India under British rule. As a result, most of the British characters are snotty and pretentious with very few if any positive qualities, while Fielding, Mrs. Moore, and Adela all come across as too good to be true with their enlightened attitudes. The audience may feel indignant about the behavior of the British, but it’s also obvious that the script and direction are manipulating you into feeling that way, and thus may make you feel annoyed at the manipulation. It’s not as bad as it could be, but it’s still noticeable and thus may dampen your enjoyment, especially if you don’t enjoy getting preached to.
If you can put that aside (which gets increasingly difficult, especially in the third act), the movie’s pretty decent. All the acting is good, although Alec Guinness playing an Indian man does raise a few eyebrows, especially nowadays. Lean’s trademark wide shots are excellent, especially his shots of trains. Despite the long runtime, the movie very rarely drags. My only complaint besides the preachiness is that some of the plot points revolving around Adela don’t always make a great deal of sense at face value and may leave you slightly confused until you read between the lines. I don’t mind it when a movie makes me stop and think, but I think the narrative could have given us an extra hint or two, especially where the third act is concerned.
Although this isn’t a movie I regret spending time with, I’m not sure I’d recommend it either. It highly depends on your tolerance for message movies; if you can look past the preaching, you’ll probably have a decent time watching it. If you can’t, I’m pretty sure there are plenty of other movies out there about adventures in India. And depending on when they were made, they may have even more spectacular visuals.