David Lean's last film "A Passage to India" was far from his
best but it was certainly an improvement over both "Doctor Zhivago" and
"Ryan's Daughter". Lean himself wrote the script, (and edited the
picture), from E M. Forster's novel and it's an intelligent as well as a
fairly sumptous epic, magnificently shot by Ernest Day and very well
cast wth the obvious exception of Alec Guinness in brown face as an
Indian Brahmin. It's not actually a bad performance and yet there is
something vaguely offensive in having a white English actor 'blacked up'
when there were so many very talented Indian actors available. On the
other hand, you certainly can't fault Judy Davis as Adela, Peggy
Ashcroft as Mrs Moore or Victor Banerjee as Dr Aziz.Ashcroft is magnificent. She won several awards for this role, including the Oscar and there's excellent work from a first-rate supporting cast. At 164 minutes it's a little on the long side; it was as if, after "The Bridge on the River Kwai", Lean found it impossble to keep things tight. Nevertheless, this did mark something of a return to form and it doesn't disgrace the great novel on which it is based.
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