Forster has been lucky as far as movie adaptations of his works are concerned. James Ivory did him justice with A Room with a View and especially with the magnificent Howards End, and having your most successful book handled by David Lean is something every novelist would envy.
A feast for the eyes - with damp jungles, peaks shrouded in clouds and crystal-blue lakes reflecting the sky like polished mirrors - the movie is a tale of social, racial and sexual tension, as in colonial India a British lady (wrongly) accuses a local doctor of attacking her during a visit to an isolated archaeological site.
The female protagonists fare better than their male counterparts. Judy Davis is phenomenal in the lead role of Adela Quested - a nuanced, powerful portrayal of a psychologically distressed individual. Ashcroft is also excellent as Mrs Moore.
Banerjee succeeds at making doctor Aziz likable, but it isn't exactly a subtle performance: he appears too childlike, naive and eager to please. Only in the epilogue some much needed bitterness comes through and paints the doctor as something deeper than a saintly scapegoat. More on target is James Fox as the British educator who sides with Aziz against his own compatriots. Alec Guinness, great as he was, is miscast as a Brahmin.
Not one of Lean's best works, but still compelling and visually rich.
7/10; for a different take (less political, more esoteric) on similar themes - sexual repression, conflict between nature and civilization - see also Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock.
A feast for the eyes - with damp jungles, peaks shrouded in clouds and crystal-blue lakes reflecting the sky like polished mirrors - the movie is a tale of social, racial and sexual tension, as in colonial India a British lady (wrongly) accuses a local doctor of attacking her during a visit to an isolated archaeological site.
The female protagonists fare better than their male counterparts. Judy Davis is phenomenal in the lead role of Adela Quested - a nuanced, powerful portrayal of a psychologically distressed individual. Ashcroft is also excellent as Mrs Moore.
Banerjee succeeds at making doctor Aziz likable, but it isn't exactly a subtle performance: he appears too childlike, naive and eager to please. Only in the epilogue some much needed bitterness comes through and paints the doctor as something deeper than a saintly scapegoat. More on target is James Fox as the British educator who sides with Aziz against his own compatriots. Alec Guinness, great as he was, is miscast as a Brahmin.
Not one of Lean's best works, but still compelling and visually rich.
7/10; for a different take (less political, more esoteric) on similar themes - sexual repression, conflict between nature and civilization - see also Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock.