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From: ecl@ahuta.UUCP (ecl)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: A PASSAGE TO INDIA
Message-ID: <299@ahuta.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Jan-85 08:06:06 EST
Article-I.D.: ahuta.299
Posted: Wed Jan  2 08:06:06 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 3-Jan-85 03:56:25 EST
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                             A PASSAGE TO INDIA
                      A film review by Mark R. Leeper

     David Lean could well be England's most respected director.  Starting
in 1944, he made films like BLITHE SPIRIT, BRIEF ENCOUNTER, GREAT
EXPECTATIONS, OLIVER TWIST, BREAKING THE SOUND BARRIER, AND HOBSON'S CHOICE.
Then his style shifted and he began to make more spectacular films, like
BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, AND DR. ZHIVAGO.  His 1970
RYAN'S DAUGHTER was something of a misfire and since then, he has been
absent from filmmmaking.  He has returned with a faithful adaptation of E.
M. Forster's A PASSAGE TO INDIA.

     This certainly seems to be a time for films about India.  The last year
or so has seen GANDHI, TV's THE FAR PAVILIONS and THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN,
and now Lean's film.  (I am intentionally omitting INDIANA JONES AND THE
TEMPLE OF DOOM, but that film takes place in the never-never land that films
called "India" in the Thirties.)  Filmmakers have discovered the exotic
beauty of India.  Also, there is a certain convenience as far as filmmaking
facilities are concerned since India has the largest film industry in the
world.

     Not having read Forster's PASSAGE TO INDIA, and knowing only that it
was a respected classic, I was rather surprised to discover that the film is
basically a story about a trial, though like many such films the story of
the trial itself is less important than the background against which the
trial takes place.  In this case it is India in the Twenties.  the film is
structured (at least superficially) in the familiar pattern of showing the
events leading up to a trial, showing the trial itself, and then showing the
effects that the legal action had on the principal characters involved.  In
this case, it involves two women who have come to India--the mother and the
fiance of a British magistrate.  An Indian doctor who idolizes the British
becomes friendly with them and arranges an expensive picnic to show them
some local caves.  Something mysterious happens at this picnic and the
doctor is accused of attempting to rape one of the women.

     Victor Banerjee is impressive as Dr. Aziz, whose love for the British
betrays him and leaves him a helpless victim of their bigotry.  Judy Davis
is suitably enigmatic as the repressed fiance.  He performance and the
camerawork at times give this film much of the same mysterious feel as Peter
Weir's PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK.  Remarkably, the least convincing part comes
just where we would expect the best.  It is a David Lean tradition (I think)
to feature Alec Guinness.  A PASSAGE TO INDIA had no suitable role for him,
so they gave him an unsuitable role, that of Godbole, an Old Indian mystic.
The same thing happened with LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, of course, and Guinness
proved a masterful King Faisal, but there are limits to how different a part
Guinness can play and still be believed.  The role in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
called for considerably more acting and could somewhat exploit a slight
physical resemblance between Guinness and the real King Faisal.  Things did
not work out as well in A PASSAGE TO INDIA.  With less opportunity to act,
Guinness had to make it to a greater extent on physical appearance.  And he
looked like Alec Guinness in make-up.

     Of the films about (the real) India listed earlier, I have seen only
GANDHI, and A PASSAGE TO INDIA has the same major flaw as that film: They
both feel like manipulative propaganda films.  Don't misunderstand me.
History has made its verdict that Britain mishandled its relations with
India, and I think I probably agree.  But I don't think I want to see many
films whose point of view is that Britain's relations were solely dictated
by greed, callousness, and bigotry.  I feel uncomfortable when a film or a
television program tries to tell me that one side of a political issue is
100% or even 95% right.  In GANDHI and A PASSAGE TO INDIA the British are
bad, bad, bad, and the Indians are good, good, good.  This may be accurate
to the book, but Forster wrote it in 1924 for an audience that had often
heard the pro-British side at a time when India was still under the British
thumb.  Forster did not need to present the opposing point of view to give a
balanced viewpoint.  Attenborough and Lean should have, but failed to.
Their films make it quite clear that they do not want to risk having the
viewer have any sympathies with the wrong side.  This attempt to manipulate
the viewer to one side of a real political issue, even a closed issue, is as
good a definition for a propaganda film as there is.

     A PASSAGE TO INDIA is a good film.  It is a +1 and the -4 to +4 scale.
But it was a poor choice for a novel if Lean was trying for another film as
great as LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.  Superficially it rides the tide of public
interest in India, but practically speaking, the book was great because it
was written in 1924--the film would have been great in 1924--but politically
and dramatically it offers little that is new in 1984.

					(Evelyn C. Leeper for)
					Mark R. Leeper
					...ihnp4!lznv!mrl