A Passage to India **** (1984, Judy Davis, Victor Banerjee, Peggy Ashcroft, Alec Guinness, James Fox, Nigel Havers, Richard Wilson) – Classic Movie Review 3178

After a 14-year gap, writer-director David Lean made a spectacular comeback in 1984 with his accomplished and satisfying adaptation of the E M Forster classic novel about the eye-opening first visit to India of a headstrong young woman, Adela Quested (Judy Davis), accompanied by her fiancée’s mother, Mrs Moore (Dame Peggy Ashcroft). Victor Banerjee plays the Indian doctor Aziz H Ahmed, who ends up in court after she accuses him of impropriety and molesting her on an arranged picnic visit to the hillside caves.

The film is graced with a series of extremely fine performances, especially by Oscar-winning best supporting actress Ashcroft, though Alec Guinness’s Indian Professor Godbole isn’t his happiest role.

Lean makes both the spectacular crowd scenes and the intimate ones equally involving and full of nuance. Ernest Day’s extremely handsome cinematography, Maurice Jarre’s Oscar-winning score, Judy Moorcroft’s costume designs and John Box’s production designs are major assets. Apart from the two wins, there were nine other Oscar nominations. Ashcroft won the Bafta award as Best Actress, its sole award, and there were eight other Bafta nominations. Banerjee won the Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actor. David Lean’s screenplay is based on both the Forster novel and the stage play version by Santha Rama Rau.

Also in the cast are James Fox, Nigel Havers, Richard Wilson, Antonia Pemberton, Michael Culver, Art Malik, Saeed Jaffrey, Clive Swift, Anne Firbank, Roshan Seth, Sandra Hotz, Rashid Karapiet, Phyllis Bose, Sally Kinghorn, Paul Anil, Z H Khan, Adam Blackwood, Peter Hughes, H S Krishnamurthy, Mohammed Ashiq, Ashok Mandanna, Dina Pathak, Edward Fox, John Michie, Ishaq Bux and Moti Makan.

It proved Lean’s last film. He died on April 16 1991, aged 83.

Saeed Jaffrey, who also starred in Gandhi, The Jewel in the Crown, The Man Who Would Be King and as Nasser in My Beautiful Laundrette died on November 14 2015, aged 86.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3178

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com