A Passage to India

Starring:Judy Davis, Victor Banerjee, Peggy Ashcroft, James Fox, Alec Guinness, Nigel Havers, Richard Wilson (II), Antonia Pemberton, Michael Culver, Art Malik, Saeed Jaffrey, Clive Swift, Anne Firbank, Roshan Seth, Sandra Hotz, Rashid Karapiet, H.S. Krishnamurthy, Ishaq Bux, Moti Makan, Mohammed Ashiq
Director: David Lean
Studio: Sony Pictures
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

This adaptation of E.M. Forster's mysterious tale of British racism in colonial India turned out to be master director David Lean's final film. Subtle and grand at the same time, Lean's adaptation is faithful to the book, rendering its blend of the mystical and the all-too human with exquisite precision. Judy Davis plays a young British woman traveling in India with her fiancé's mother. While visiting a tourist attraction, she has a frightening moment in a cave--one that she eventually spins from an instant of mental meltdown into a tale of a physical attack that ruins several lives. Lean captures Forster's sense of awe at the kind of ageless wisdom and inexplicable phenomena to be encountered in India, as well as the British tendency to dismiss it all as savage, rather than simply different. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews:

If I (had to) choose ..........2007-06-08

the best movie I've seen in the last 50 years - this would be my choice. This DVD's picture and audio are (perfect) in quality.

Enjoyable if a bit flawed.......2007-03-25

I enjoyed this film, as entertainment. It is visually rich, the story is engaging and the acting is first rate. If you want to look at it more deeply, as some of the reviewers here have, you can find some problems. It depends on what you're looking for in a movie. Two hours of way above average entertainment, in my book.
The problem I had was that the troubled side of Miss Quested was not adequately demonstrated before the incident at the cave, which made her initial rape charge completely surprising to me. Her "melt-down" in the cave was not shown very well. True, she was young, had never been out of England and was probably sexually inexperienced and maybe the heat of India got to her. But it didn't make much sense and since that was the pivotal incident in the story, it should have been shown in a better way. It seemed to me that, up until that point, she was shown as very wise and mature with the insight to recognize the indecency of the poor behavior of the English towards the Indians. Her relationship with Mrs. Moore seemed to cement the picture of her as having depth of character. True we had her fleeing from the monkeys in the temple of love, but I think they might frighten anyone. I also didn't understand Mrs. Moore's hasty departure. She had been depicted as being a huge moral force so why she suddenly left, leaving poor Dr. Aziz in his time of trial, seemed out of character.

If Miss Quested was really a victim of extreme culture shock and I understand that India can do this to you, I don't think that the way she was portrayed after the trial was very fair. Was she meant to be shown as lonely, miserable person at the end? I guess I'll have to read the book to find out what really went on...

I did agree that Alec Guiness was a mistake here...he seemed almost comical and that was not the intent.

kinda good kinda boring.......2007-01-04

I have to remember it was made in 1980's. It was too long of a movie and it took too long to get interesting

David Lean's Last Film One of His Best.......2006-11-11

Being a fan of David Lean's work, I have always been rather bemused by the vicious critical drubbing and public indifference that greeted his 1970 work RYAN'S DAUGHTER. Lean was so upset by this that it would take him 14 years to complete another film, which would be his last, A PASSAGE TO INDIA. If the word comeback ever had a truer meaning I cannot think of it. INDIA was greeted with raves, very good boxoffice and 11 Academy Award nominations.
The story, taken from the marvelous E.M. Forster book I read in college, is the tale of Miss Quested , newly arrived from England, and her companion and prospective future mother in law Mrs. Moore. Neither wants to be constrained by the British Raj way of doing things which leads to their undoing-a sure sign of a Lean epic.
Lean manages to capture the full flavor and atmosphere of the period at a fraction of the cost of his other "big" pictures. The weirdness factor is very high in this film which is another of the director's trademarks.
The scene in which Judy Davis as the confused Miss Quested is at first confronted and then chased by a horde of wild monkeys in the midst of the ruins of some ancient temple dedicated to sex is deliciously creepy. It's relatively early in the picture so it sets the tone for what will follow.
David Lean, for an Englishman, took pains to dump on the English as a race which I've always found fascinating. Recognizing foiables in your own group takes courage and someone who is not afraid of the darker impulses in human nature. In other words, the characters here are intimately detailed, again against the backdrop of history and social upheaval that were hallmarks of Lean's films.
The late Dame Peggy Ashcroft won the oscar for her portryal of Mrs. Moore, a woman at odds with those of her own class in the midst of the dying Raj. She is wonderful as is Judy Davis (now more famous for playing judy Garland) who received a nomination for playing Miss Quested. The film is so enigmatic it may take the dvd viewer more than one screening to appreciate all the subtle Lean nuances, but it is worth your time, and I would also say you may want to purchase the soundtrack of Maurice Jarre's (Lean's composer of choice on four films) marvelous score.
I never met a Jarre score I didn't like.
While INDIA may not be another KWAI or ZHIVAGO it must always be treasured for the artistry that Lean lent to all of his films-the culmination as it were-of his various techniques and trademarks. Because it took so long for Lean to get another picture completed it must also be regarded as not only the great man's last film, but as the final period on a body of work too long delayed. We are left wondering what may have been in between his last two pictures.

British Imperialism in crisis.......2006-07-22

The mid-1980s were banner years for E.M. Forster fans, like me. Two of his novels were successfully, brilliantly adapted for the big screen: "A Room with a View" and this, "A Passage to India".

In this remarkable film, David Lean has captured the beauty of India, the problems of British Imperialism of the time, the fragility of friendship, and the pursuit of justice and truth. Tough issues to tackle, but, as most directors will admit, when you have the perfect cast, the rest is easy. The cast here is marvelous: Judy Davis, Victor Banerjee, James Fox, Peggy Ashcroft and, of course, Alec Guinness turn in nothing less than inspired performances. This left Lean free to luxuriate on the lush countryside of India and, when needed, to turn on the heat during the intense courtroom dramas and the other intrigues surrounding it.

As if the movie itself wasn't enough to recommend it, the transfer to dvd is remarkably good. This is a first-rate product.

The David Lean Collection (Lawrence of Arabia / The Bridge on the River Kwai / A Passage to India)

Average customer rating:

Defective Product
Triple Guinness
Great Classics

The David Lean Collection (Lawrence of Arabia / The Bridge on the River Kwai / A Passage to India)
Starring: David Lean
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Drama | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

Classics | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

( D ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B0000AGQ72
Release Date: 2003-09-09

Amazon.com

Lawrence of Arabia
In David Lean's masterful "desert classic," Peter O'Toole gives a star-making performance as T.E. Lawrence, the eccentric British officer who united the desert tribes of Arabia against the Turks during World War I. Lean orchestrates sweeping battle sequences and breathtaking action, but the film is really about the adventures and trials that transform Lawrence into a legendary man of the desert. Lean traces this transformation on a vast canvas of awesome physicality; no other movie has captured the expanse of the desert with such scope and grandeur. Equally important is the psychology of Lawrence, who remains an enigma even as we grasp his identification with the desert. Perhaps the greatest triumph of this landmark film is that Lean has conveyed the romance, danger, and allure of the desert with such physical and emotional power. It's a film about a man who leads one life but is irresistibly drawn to another, where his greatness and mystery are allowed to flourish in equal measure. --Jeff Shannon

The Bridge on the River Kwai
Director David Lean's masterful 1957 realization of Pierre Boulle's novel remains a benchmark for war films, and a deeply absorbing movie by any standard--like most of Lean's canon, The Bridge on the River Kwai achieves a richness in theme, narrative, and characterization that transcends genre. The story centers on a Japanese prison camp isolated deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia, where the remorseless Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) has been charged with building a vitally important railway bridge. His clash of wills with a British prisoner, the charismatic Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), escalates into a duel of honor, Nicholson defying his captor's demands to win concessions for his troops. How the two officers reach a compromise, and Nicholson becomes obsessed with building that bridge, provides the story's thematic spine; the parallel movement of a team of commandos dispatched to stop the project, led by a British major (Jack Hawkins) and guided by an American escapee (William Holden), supplies the story's suspense and forward momentum. Shot on location in Sri Lanka, Kwai moves with a careful, even deliberate pace that survivors of latter-day, high-concept blockbusters might find lulling--Lean doesn't pander to attention deficit disorders with an explosion every 15 minutes. Instead, he guides us toward the intersection of the two plots, accruing remarkable character details through extraordinary performances. Hayakawa's cruel camp commander is gradually revealed as a victim of his own sense of honor, Holden's callow opportunist proves heroic without softening his nihilistic edge, and Guinness (who won a Best Actor Oscar, one of the production's seven wins) disappears as only he can into Nicholson's brittle, duty-driven, delusional psychosis. His final glimpse of self-knowledge remains an astonishing moment--story, character, and image coalescing with explosive impact. --Sam Sutherland

A Passage to India
This adaptation of E.M. Forster's mysterious tale of British racism in colonial India turned out to be master director David Lean's final film. Subtle and grand at the same time, Lean's adaptation is faithful to the book, rendering its blend of the mystical and the all-too human with exquisite precision. Judy Davis plays a young British woman traveling in India with her fiancé's mother. While visiting a tourist attraction, she has a frightening moment in a cave--one that she eventually spins from an instant of mental meltdown into a tale of a physical attack that ruins several lives. Lean captures Forster's sense of awe at the kind of ageless wisdom and inexplicable phenomena to be encountered in India, as well as the British tendency to dismiss it all as savage, rather than simply different. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews:

Defective Product.......2007-05-06

I regret that I have to return the Lean collection because the disc of Lawrence of Arabia is defective. And your instruction was to return the entire set. This is not the fault of Amazon but the fault of the manufacturers - Columbia Pictures and Sony. I had purchased an identical DVD of Lawwrence from a local electronics store and discovered that the disc was corrupted shortly after the start of the film's second half. I returned the disc to the store and was given another. It was corrupted in exactly the same place. That's when I ordered the Lean collection from Amazon in the hope of getting an uncorrupted disc of Lawrence. But, sad to say, the Lawrence disc in the Amazon trio of DVDs was also corrupted in precisely the same place. I am in the process of returning the collection in the hope of gaining a refund of the more than $40.00 I paid for the collection.

Triple Guinness.......2005-10-04

BRIDGE shows us a certain kind of international filmmaking when, after the war, big budget British pictures often had to haul in an American star or two to get financing. William Holden is certainly working hard in BRIDGE, but he seems as though he's panting in overdrive trying to keep up with the effortless cool of Alec Guinness and the other British stars. This trend is even more pronounced in LAWRENCE, made at a time when the studios were all in deep crisis and each individual movie had the power to make or break the studio financing it. It was a time of huge gambles, and occasionally one or two of them would pay off handsomely.

Kevin Brownlow's life of David Lean (1996) shows how Lean came to regard Alec Guinness as a sort of touchstone for good luck, using him whenever possible. (He went into RYAN'S DAUGHTER with a foreboding that proved eerily accurate; the picture had disappointing financial results--and in Lean's view he had failed to lure in Alec Guinness and that was the reason). In LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, Lean was faced with the challenge of bringing Guinness into the movie even though he (Guinness) had desperately wanted to play Lawrence himself, and had done so to great acclaim in the play Terence Rattigan wrote for him to showcase his powers in the part (ROSS was the name of Rattigan's drama).

In today's political climate it is sometimes said that Guinness was making a fool of himself trying to play men from different, "exotic" cultural backgrounds, particularly his Indian doctor in A PASSAGE TO INDIA, and many Indians have objected, arguing that there were thousands of authentically Indian actors who might have played the part with more ease than Guinness. When I watch the movie I get a disagreeable feeling when I hear Guinness trying to put over his sing-song voice. It's like a whole volume of Edward Said flooding the screen with "I told you so." It's not that he's a bad actor, but he doesn't convince. He seems to be making fun of South Asian people by mocking their accents, not to mention their skin color. Same with LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, though not so bad. It's a thorny question and I have no answers, only to observe that Guinness was one of those proud men who think they can play anything--and mostly they're correct.

Great Classics.......2003-12-12

This is one of the best collections I own. If you love all the classic movies, definitely go for this one!

Average customer rating:

If I (had to) choose ...
Enjoyable if a bit flawed
kinda good kinda boring
David Lean's Last Film One of His Best
British Imperialism in crisis

A Passage to India [Region 2]
Starring: Judy Davis , Victor Banerjee , Peggy Ashcroft , James Fox , and Alec Guinness
Director: David Lean
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( P ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

General | Mystery & Suspense | Genres | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B000089AUE

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

If I (had to) choose ..........2007-06-08

the best movie I've seen in the last 50 years - this would be my choice. This DVD's picture and audio are (perfect) in quality.

Enjoyable if a bit flawed.......2007-03-25

kinda good kinda boring.......2007-01-04

I have to remember it was made in 1980's. It was too long of a movie and it took too long to get interesting

David Lean's Last Film One of His Best.......2006-11-11

British Imperialism in crisis.......2006-07-22

QUEENIE with Mia Sarah, Kirk Douglas and Sarah Miles (High Quality Import Edition-NTSC format-Region 1-Playable in North America)

Average customer rating:

QUEENIE with Mia Sarah, Kirk Douglas and Sarah Miles (High Quality Import Edition-NTSC format-Region 1-Playable in North America)

Manufacturer: Classicline
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

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ASIN: B000GFD9F2

Product Description

Brand new, factory sealed, fully licensed DVD manufactured in Brazil. NTSC format. Playable on any North American DVD player. High quality full screen color image. Original English dialog with optional subtitles in Portuguese. Portuguese subtitles do not appear unless turned on and they can be easily turned off. A half-caste beauty emigrates from India to Great Britain, pursues fame and fortune at the cost of personal happiness, and becomes a Hollywood movie star while suppressing the truth of her heritage. Based upon the life of Merle Oberon. Her first husband was Alexander Korda, uncle of Michael Korda who wrote the movie. The following review appears in Amazon for the VHS edition: "When I first saw Queenie, I was immediately struck with the masterful depiction of British India. The bitter racial prejudice that permeated the environment was exceedingly well portrayed in Queenie's life story. It emphasized the ridiculousness of racial superiority, as Queenie was part Indian, yet no one could tell so merely by her appearance, as she looked quite white, and was treated thus by those who did not know her ancestry. This superficiality of skin color was a fantastic motif in the movie. Besides being rich in historical culture, however, Queenie also succeeded in being a movie about the power of the individual--Queenie persevered against all odds, fighting herself as well as her environment, yet at the end she is able to accept herself, and be proud of her heritage as well. In essence, this movie is a unique and classic archetypal story, richly done, and laudable."

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