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A Passage to India
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A Passage to India (1984) More at IMDbPro »

Videos (see all 4)
A Passage to India (1984) -- US Home Video Trailer from Columbia Tristar
A Passage to India (1984) -- Open-ended Trailer from Columbia Tristar
A Passage to India (1984) -- Sinematurk - Trailer (Flash)

Overview

User Rating:
7.4/10   5,640 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 3% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Writers:
Contact:
View company contact information for A Passage to India on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
25 January 1985 (USA) more
Tagline:
David Lean, the Director of "Doctor Zhivago", "Lawrence of Arabia" and "The Bridge on the River Kwai", invites you on . . .[A Passage to India]
Plot:
Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a friendship in British colonial India between an Indian doctor, an Englishwoman engaged to marry a city magistrate, and an English educator. full summary | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
Awards:
Won 2 Oscars. Another 18 wins & 24 nominations more
User Comments:
Lean's silent scene suggests reason for court case. more (59 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Judy Davis ... Adela
Victor Banerjee ... Aziz
Peggy Ashcroft ... Mrs. Moore
James Fox ... Fielding

Alec Guinness ... Godbole
Nigel Havers ... Ronny
Richard Wilson ... Turton
Antonia Pemberton ... Mrs. Turton
Michael Culver ... McBryde
Art Malik ... Ali

Saeed Jaffrey ... Hamidullah
Clive Swift ... Major Callendar
Ann Firbank ... Mrs. Callendar
Roshan Seth ... Amritrao
Sandra Hotz ... Stella
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
David Lean's Film of a Passage to India (UK) (complete title)
more
Runtime:
163 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Color (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Company:

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
The relationship between David Lean and Alec Guinness deteriorated during the making of the movie. The final straw came for Guinness when he found out that a large chunk of his scenes had been left on the cutting floor by Lean. Neither man ever met or spoke to the other again. more
Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: At the end of the film, as Dr. Aziz writes a letter, a festival with fireworks is going on outside his window. The colors red, green, and purple all appear simultaneously at two separate intervals, indicating studio lights instead of fireworks. more
Quotes:
Richard Fielding: [on the glasses found on Aziz after the latter's arrest] If Adela had hit him with it, he'd hardly take it with him.
McBryde: I'm not surprised.
Richard Fielding: I don't follow.
McBryde: When you think of crime, you think of English crime. The psychology's different out here.
more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in "Jeopardy!: (#26.28)" (2009) more
Soundtrack:
Tea For Two more

FAQ

A NOTE ABOUT SPOILERS
Is Adela Quested deluded, evil, malicious or just downright stupid?
more
15 out of 20 people found the following comment useful.
Lean's silent scene suggests reason for court case., 10 April 2006
10/10
Author: jrcadams from United States

Films based on novels (as in this case) must rely on screenplays which condense the material, and supply either voice-overs, or visuals to explain what is going on in a character's head. Usually, a voice-over is a cop-out. David Lean has provided a brilliant substitute for a voice-over in the scene where Adela wanders on her bicycle into the bush to discover a Hindu temple. A central mystery in the book as well as in the film is the ambiguity of the cause for the court case. Forster said that judgment was up to the reader. Lean was a reader, and in my view, he made his decision, and provided us with a clue in that scene (which is not in the book). Here is that scene: Adela leaves the safe British compound on an exploratory trip with a bicycle. She leaves the highway, and cycles down a path through the weeds. The sign- post, which had appeared quite natural when she looked at it, now looks like a Christian Cross when she leaves the road and goes down the path. The music changes from a major key to the minor, suggesting mystery, or menace. She is leaving her familiar culture and riding into the unknown. She sees a fallen sculpture. A voluptuous sculpture. She doesn't turn back. As she rides farther, the weeds grow higher. She is being engulfed by India. She dismounts as she approaches a copse, and walks into the shadows. She sees a ruined Hindu temple covered with erotic sculptures. Amourous couples are coupling. She stares at these apparitions, so abandoned, and so alien to her proper Victorian up-bringing. She is attracted by the spectacle, but she is frightened by her attraction. Suddenly she hears a noise, and looks up to see a troop of monkeys. They chatter menacingly at her and begin to scamper down the temple, over the erotic sculpture, and in panic she flees. Could the monkeys symbolize that emotional, sensual, animal nature that lives in everyone but is supposed to be suppressed in Englishwomen (and American ones, for that matter!)? Are they saying, "This is our land, the land of emotion; you do not belong here"? India attracts her. It awakens hidden desires. It menaces her. She flees to the familiar, visibly shaken. Back at the bungalow, with her fiancé, she says "I want to take back what I said at the polo," which was that she wanted to delay the wedding. She was so frightened by the feelings rising in her as she tasted a bit of Indian culture that she wanted to put a stop to passion by marrying! And all of that was said in the film without words. It provides us with a rationale for believing she later suffered an hallucination, which is at the core of the plot.

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Message Boards

Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for A Passage to India (1984)
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Better without Sir Alec ... romojo
music at party t-howarth
what is the name of the bridge ? elexa_glome
Notes on A PASSAGE TO INDIA JSlack3
Original ending stefan-andersson72
Piggybacking with Jewel in the Crown? MarkH-5
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