Stung by the reception for Ryan’s Daughter in 1970, after coming off his greatest successes The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Dr. Zhivago (1965), director David Lean pulled back from filmmaking for nearly fourteen years. Lean wanted to film E. M. Forster’s novel A Passage to India from as early as 1960 but the author had refused to sell the movie rights. With the help of sympathetic producers, Lean gained access to them in 1981 but it took several more years to go into production. In the 1920s, Adela (Judy Davis) and Mrs. Moore (Peggy Ashcroft) journey to India to visit Moore’s magistrate son, who is also Adela’s fiancé. The two women, yearning to see the real India, meet a friendly Muslim, Dr. Aziz (Victor Banerjee) through school a superintendent, Fielding (James Fox), who treats the native population as equals. Aziz warms to the female couple as they seem unfazed by cultural barriers. When Adela and Mrs. Moore accompany Aziz on a tour of some spectacular caves, Mrs. Moore grows claustrophobic but encourages Aziz and Adela to continue. When Aziz and Adela are separated, she flees, and when Aziz returns to town he is arrested for attempted rape. Xenophobic factions on both the British and Indian sides seize on the case. Adela had already been questioning her engagement to Moore’s son. Are her accusations true? Or had her repressed sexuality given way to hysteria when she had realized her attraction to Aziz, a big taboo? Nominated for 11 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress, the film won two, Best Supporting Actress (Peggy Ashcroft) and Best Original Music Score (Maurice Jarre), and it served to restore Leans reputation with the critics. Sadly, it turned out to be his last film before his death.
“Forster’s novel is one of the literary landmarks of this century, and now David Lean has made it into one of the greatest screen adaptations I have ever seen. 4 Stars” – Roger Ebert
“‘A Passage to India is by far his best work since The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia and perhaps his most humane and moving film since Brief Encounter. Though vast in physical scale and set against a tumultuous Indian background, it is also intimate, funny and moving in the manner of a film maker completely in control of his material.” – Vincent Canby, The New York Times
