David Lean wasn't an especially likable guy, despite his over-sized ears. When Guiness arrived on the set, Lean told him he'd been hoping for another actor for the part of Godbole. He was so sadistic to Sessue Hayakawa on "The Bridge on the River Quai," blaming Hayakaway's flawed English for all the delays that Hayakawa's breakdown scene was real. He was impatient with crews too, snapping at them because he was losing the light, as if it were the photographer who was turning them down.
But, whew, what a resume! From "Great Expectations" to this, his last film, and although some are slower than others there is not a clunker among them. (It's hard to believe that more than twenty years have passed since his last work.) His interests were in the story of people involved in cultural clashes and tended to be set against vast landscapes. He was in some ways like John Ford writ large. We get to know the people marching along the skylines.
"Passage to India" isn't his best film but it's a good thoughtful one, with his usual attention to details of weather, furniture, and wildlife. The imagery, as always, is striking. Near the beginning, two English ladies are having drinks on a train and the delicate conversation is suddenly interrupted by a slow, elephantine kathoom, kathoom, kathoom. The ladies look up, a bit surprised. A cut reveals the girders of a steel bridge across a river sliding past the train window. Ba-Boom. Loud and distinct but far away, like an echo of cannon fire from future revolutions. It's hard to imagine another director willing to take a chance with the splendid simplicity of a shot like that.
I'll just mention one more scene in passing, as an illustration of the point. Peggy Ashcroft, as Mrs. Moore, probably best known as the sympathetic and abused farmer's wife in "The Thirty Nine Steps", has met Alec Guiness, as Godbole, the Hindu teacher, only once, and then briefly. But after she leaves, Godbole casually refers to her as "an old soul," in the Hindu sense of one who has led many previous lives. And that's it. They don't meet again. Until an hour of two of screen time later, when Ashcroft leaves India, unaccompanied. As the train pulls slowly out of the station, she stares at the silhouette of a figure that appears on the platform and performs an elaborate ritual salute to Ashcroft. A quick closeup shows us that the figure is Godbole. The scene comes as a complete surprise. It is like watching the interplay between the ghosts of two separate cultures.
I don't know if I should have used that trope because it reminds me of a Samoan friend who found himself hitch-hiking alone at night on an Arizona highway. He was terrified of ghosts. Not Samoan ghosts, because they were back in Samoa. And not American ghosts because he could speak their language. It was the prospect of Indian ghosts that frightened him because he had no idea of what to say! Sorry.
Basically, I guess, in this story we find it almost impossible to doubt the innocence of Dr. Aziz. He's as eager to please as a child. But we have good reason to doubt Judy Davis as Adela Qwested. She isn't exactly sexually liberated, a good stiff clean English woman. When she visits a deserted temple with Kama Sutra sorts of erotic bas reliefs, her presence seems to get the resident monkeys perturbed and they screech at her until she leaves in a near panic. The film also indicates in subtle ways her attraction to Dr. Aziz. (She appears to sweat a lot when she's alone with him.) Of course he has no idea of what's going on.
The rape accusation dissolves in court, along with the dust caking the courtroom skylight as the monsoon rains begin. The English go back to England. Dr. Aziz remains bitter because his reputation is totally shot, until the end when he transcends his anger. As Godbole has been saying, "None of it matters in the long run anyway." Of course he's thinking of the really LONG long run.
The British colonials try to railroad a person of color into jail, and they fail. The theme is a familiar one to most American viewers, I would imagine, except that in American movies they don't always fail. The ending is sad but sweet and a little uplifting too, as the events at the Marabar Caves and the subsequent trial recede into the past. Time wounds all heels, they say, but there aren't any heels in this movie, except a few British racist snobs, who aren't really evil, just products of their age, as are we all. The raucous celebration of the Indians after the trial, what with the fireworks and all, are a little disturbing in light of the wars yet to come between the Hindus of India and the Moslems of Pakistan. It goes without saying that those who knew nothing of the affair -- the Indians who believe Aziz to be innocent and the British who believe him guilty -- are both guilty themselves.
I kind of miss David Lean, as long as I never had to work for him. See this movie and relax and enjoy it.
But, whew, what a resume! From "Great Expectations" to this, his last film, and although some are slower than others there is not a clunker among them. (It's hard to believe that more than twenty years have passed since his last work.) His interests were in the story of people involved in cultural clashes and tended to be set against vast landscapes. He was in some ways like John Ford writ large. We get to know the people marching along the skylines.
"Passage to India" isn't his best film but it's a good thoughtful one, with his usual attention to details of weather, furniture, and wildlife. The imagery, as always, is striking. Near the beginning, two English ladies are having drinks on a train and the delicate conversation is suddenly interrupted by a slow, elephantine kathoom, kathoom, kathoom. The ladies look up, a bit surprised. A cut reveals the girders of a steel bridge across a river sliding past the train window. Ba-Boom. Loud and distinct but far away, like an echo of cannon fire from future revolutions. It's hard to imagine another director willing to take a chance with the splendid simplicity of a shot like that.
I'll just mention one more scene in passing, as an illustration of the point. Peggy Ashcroft, as Mrs. Moore, probably best known as the sympathetic and abused farmer's wife in "The Thirty Nine Steps", has met Alec Guiness, as Godbole, the Hindu teacher, only once, and then briefly. But after she leaves, Godbole casually refers to her as "an old soul," in the Hindu sense of one who has led many previous lives. And that's it. They don't meet again. Until an hour of two of screen time later, when Ashcroft leaves India, unaccompanied. As the train pulls slowly out of the station, she stares at the silhouette of a figure that appears on the platform and performs an elaborate ritual salute to Ashcroft. A quick closeup shows us that the figure is Godbole. The scene comes as a complete surprise. It is like watching the interplay between the ghosts of two separate cultures.
I don't know if I should have used that trope because it reminds me of a Samoan friend who found himself hitch-hiking alone at night on an Arizona highway. He was terrified of ghosts. Not Samoan ghosts, because they were back in Samoa. And not American ghosts because he could speak their language. It was the prospect of Indian ghosts that frightened him because he had no idea of what to say! Sorry.
Basically, I guess, in this story we find it almost impossible to doubt the innocence of Dr. Aziz. He's as eager to please as a child. But we have good reason to doubt Judy Davis as Adela Qwested. She isn't exactly sexually liberated, a good stiff clean English woman. When she visits a deserted temple with Kama Sutra sorts of erotic bas reliefs, her presence seems to get the resident monkeys perturbed and they screech at her until she leaves in a near panic. The film also indicates in subtle ways her attraction to Dr. Aziz. (She appears to sweat a lot when she's alone with him.) Of course he has no idea of what's going on.
The rape accusation dissolves in court, along with the dust caking the courtroom skylight as the monsoon rains begin. The English go back to England. Dr. Aziz remains bitter because his reputation is totally shot, until the end when he transcends his anger. As Godbole has been saying, "None of it matters in the long run anyway." Of course he's thinking of the really LONG long run.
The British colonials try to railroad a person of color into jail, and they fail. The theme is a familiar one to most American viewers, I would imagine, except that in American movies they don't always fail. The ending is sad but sweet and a little uplifting too, as the events at the Marabar Caves and the subsequent trial recede into the past. Time wounds all heels, they say, but there aren't any heels in this movie, except a few British racist snobs, who aren't really evil, just products of their age, as are we all. The raucous celebration of the Indians after the trial, what with the fireworks and all, are a little disturbing in light of the wars yet to come between the Hindus of India and the Moslems of Pakistan. It goes without saying that those who knew nothing of the affair -- the Indians who believe Aziz to be innocent and the British who believe him guilty -- are both guilty themselves.
I kind of miss David Lean, as long as I never had to work for him. See this movie and relax and enjoy it.