Mohammed Ashiq Movies
A Passage to India, director David Lean's final film (for which he also received editing credit), breaks no new ground cinematically, but remains an exquisitely assembled harkback to such earlier Lean epics as Doctor Zhivago and Ryan's Daughter. Based on the novel by E. M. Forster, the film is set in colonial India in 1924. Adela Quested (Judy Davis), a sheltered, well-educated British woman, arrives in the town of Chandrapore, where she hopes to experience "the real India". Here she meets and befriends Dr. Aziz (Victor Banerjee), who, despite longstanding racial and social taboos, moves with relative ease and freedom amongst highborn British circles. Feeling comfortable with Adela, Aziz invites her to accompany him on a visit to the Marabar caves. Adela has previously exhibited bizarre, almost mystical behavior during other ventures into the Indian wilderness: this time, she emerges from the caves showing signs of injury and ill usage. To Aziz' horror, he is accused by Adela of raping her. Typically, the British ruling class rallies to Adela's defense, virtually convicting Aziz before the trial ever begins. Though he is eventually acquitted due to lack of evidence (in fact, director Lean never shows us what really happened), Aziz is ruined in the eyes of both the British and his own people-as is Adela. Woven into these proceedings is a subplot involving Adela's elderly travelling companion Mrs. Moore (Peggy Ashcroft), who through a series of plot twists too complex to describe here becomes a heroine of the Indian Independence movement. A Passage to India was nominated for several Academy Awards, scoring wins in the categories of Best Supporting Actress (Peggy Ashcroft) and Best Original Score (Maurice Jarre). A theatrical version of A Passage to India, written by Santha Rama Rau, was previously adapted for television by the BBC in the mid-1970s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Judy Davis, Victor Banerjee, (more)
John Cleese's knack for mining hilarity from the growing frustration of a dignified gentleman is fully exploited in the British comedy Clockwise. Cleese portrays Brian Stimpson, a perfectionist English headmaster who has been selected to make an important presentation before a group of his peers. When Stimpson sets out upon his journey, however, he finds himself facing a seemingly never-ending series of delays and inconveniences, which range from missing a train to becoming a fugitive from the police. The film goes no deeper than its farcical surface, but is nevertheless consistently entertaining, thanks to former Monty Python member Cleese's precisely tuned transitions from composure to complete collapse. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Cleese, Alison Steadman, (more)
- 1988
- PG13
Shirley MacLaine is Madame Sousatzka, an aging piano instructor of Russian extraction. Entrenched in a dilapidated London rooming house, the Madame gives lessons only to the most gifted. She does not stop at mere instruction; Sousatzka insists that her pupils conduct their lives in the same genteel, cultured manner in which she was raised. Her prize student at the moment is an East Indian teenage boy (Navin Chowdhry), who forms a strong and loving bond with the old woman. Director John Schlesinger occasionally cuts away from the Madame and her pupil to allow comic space for the other tenants in Ashcroft's building, including an erstwhile songstress (Twiggy) and a gay osteopath (Geoffrey Baydlon). Navim Chowdhry's mother is played by Shabana Azmi, an important star of Indian films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley MacLaine, Navin Chowdhry, (more)
