A Passage to India (1984)

I'm not done with the '80s, and since I still don't have anything new that seems better, I'm back to that period. Or, you could also say that "karma strikes back" after my last entry against the new eligibility criteria for best picture Oscar. Because one of the nominations of more than 35 years ago, "A Passage to India", actually passes all the new requirements, and I can't deny it's the best movie I've seen this year by now. Not that it would change in any way my previous opinion, on the contrary... If something deserves to get there, this is proof that it can do it without adding restrictions.

The last movie of David Lean is based on a book that tracks two British women's visit in the colonial India, a mother of a local judge together with her future daughter-in-law. The first part of the movie doesn't tell you much of where it's heading. Besides the discrimination shown by the white minority in charge towards the local people, plus the boiling conflict that stems of this, which seem to play a role in the movie's resolution, the rest looks like a background soft romance from a Woody Allen movie, but bland and humourless. At some point, Aziz, a local physician, admirer of the British civilization, gets into the story, and following a series of events he finds himself in the position of a local guide for two women. Embarassed by his own house, to avoid their visit, he proposes a trip he's paying for himself, to some caves, one of the touristic objectives in the area, asking also a teacher, pretty much the only Englishman that doesn't seem to dislike Indians, to join them. Well, if the movie doesn't do much to keep you watching up to this part, from here on it starts to deliver... What? I won't spoil it.

In its first half, "A Passage to India" seems to be part of the same age as "Lawrence of Arabia" - if there's something that might annoy you is the feeling that the production year is sometime in the '60s, not in the '80s. There are plenty of typical elements, from a cinematography rich in close-ups, with long transitions to the actors who tend to overact from time to time, and the initially slow development, which gets close to become boring at some point. Probably there's nothing intentional about it, after all that's David Lean's movie school, but it somehow makes what's following in the second part to look a bit surreal. In this '60s movie setting, which is typically quite pragmatic and clear, we're getting some discrete parts of reflection over life of so much depth that it somehow either can surprise the viewer if he manages to decrypt these, or it might leave you in a dense confusion. In any case, Nolan can take lessons about "hidden meanings" from here. I'm not saying more than that it mixes very nicely the ideas of karma, life and the Hindi conception on reincarcation, all over a background of racial conflict, where it gives equal credit for what "too far" would mean for both sides. Just to conclude in perfect balance, good as a lesson also for the current times, maybe even more than for 1984.

Rating: 4 out of 5