MovieChat Forums > A Passage to India (1985) Discussion > the whole plot is one big joke

the whole plot is one big joke

posted 18 years ago by pvinnitsky
15 replies | jump to latest

why she comes to India to meet the man she doesn't love, why they go to the caves, why there are bunch of Indians who go to the caves with them, why he goes away to have a smoke, why she goes into a cave by herself, why she accuses him of attempted rape, why every Indian is convinced that he is innocent, why that guy marry Stella. Bad movie, and I bet the book is not much better.

lame and far-fetched way to point out few social and political issues.

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] gribfritz2 13 years ago

why you post on imdb?

[–] mark-1589 12 years ago

To pvinnitsky: the mere fact that you cannot understand something does not detract from its quality or make it a "joke". The joke here is your attempt to verbalize an idea. In case you are ill-informed (okay, we can take that for granted), the novel was published in the 1920s; social mores were VERY different then, especially for brits who were highly sexually repressed society. Also, this story concerns British rule over India (which at that time encompassed also Pakistan and Bangledesh), the British racism toward the "natives", etc. etc. All in all, I rather doubt you have the mental capacity, breadth of knowledge or general thinking ability to grasp what is actually going on in this story.

The book is much better than the film. Actually, I consider Forster's novel one of the very best novels of the 20th Century.

[–] dxara8 11 years ago

Why don't you do your research before complaining?

'A Passage to India' is a novel published in 1924 by E.M. Forster, and one of the most important literary works concerning the British Empire and its imperialistic doings. Doesn't seem such a joke now, does it?

[–] yusef-ghanima 8 years ago

i have the answer for every single question you asked

[–] louiseculmer 8 years ago

the plot is pretty thin. No adequate explanation is ever given as to why she thinks Aziz has assaulted her, nor why, after accusing him, she changes her mind and withdraws the charge.

[–] ceric-703-490951 8 years ago

Re-watch the movie: the look Adela has on her face when she's sitting on her bed the first night and Ronny knocks on her door, and how the look changes when Ronny doesn't come into the room and just says goodnight; her solo bike ride when she comes upon the erotic statues and when she gets back she tells Ronny she's changed her mind and WILL marry him; her questions to Dr. Aziz about his wife and if he loved her and if he had many wives or just one; the symbolism of the cave openings and the nettles that pricked her on her flight from the cave. Now do you get it?

[–] louiseculmer 8 years ago

No. None of that explains why she would think aziz had assaulted her if he didn't. I find the whole thing very unconvincing, as ai did when I read the book.

[–] ceric-703-490951 8 years ago

LOL, you're very literal. You'd never make it as an English major. Of course, Adela is sexually repressed. She's longing for carnal knowledge and yet she fears it at the same time. She's in India to marry a man, it's hot, she's alone with a man who has had a wife and has experienced love, the caves are mysterious, they have an echo that touches something inside her, Aziz comes looking for her, he's at the entrance to the cave, she's overcome and overwhelmed by her feelings, her desires, her fears. She breaks down and imagines that Aziz assaults her because it's what she's been thinking about, longing for (sex, not Aziz assaulting her), fearing. She makes the accusation against Aziz from a fevered mind and with the encouragement of the English establishment, and then when she's taken through the account step-by-step in a courtroom, her conscious mind realizes the assault never happened. The echo in her head goes away.

[–] mark-1589 8 years ago

ceric-703-490951

I pretty much agree with everything you wrote, but you fail to state explicitly a very important detail: what freaked her out the most at the cave was that she felt sexual attraction for Aziz and attributing her feelings to him (thus imagining his intent was to enter the cave and assault her) in an excellent illustration of projection. She spoke with Aziz about love, and as she confessed later at the trial, it was because she realized she did not love her fiance. Of course, I am reading this into the situation, but one of the most likely reasons she came to such a realization at that moment was because she felt strong attraction for Aziz.

[–] mark-1589 8 years ago

Perhaps it is the concept of "assault" that is troubling you. Adela was not asserting that he actually raped her, only that he entered the cave with the intention of having his way with her, she freaks out, exited the cave and ran down the hill. And Adela did not really have to say anything; the other Brits there would have jumped to that conclusion anyway.

[–] tara_r_a 8 years ago

True. This is such an overrated movie with subpar direction. Why was Aziz behaving like an excited puppy, or the judge shaking and sweating buckets lacking any composure , his face even looked like they had applied splotches of dark paint on him.

Miss Quested starts out normal, then simply starts shaking at Aziz's sight for no reason, her panic attack is never explained, nor why would she have accused him in the first place and what brought her to her senses. And at the end of the movie, Aziz writes an apologetic letter to her!! Seriously.

[–] louiseculmer 8 years ago

Agree. it is all totally bizarre.

[–] Catbookss (13664) 5 years ago

"Miss Quested starts out normal, then simply starts shaking at Aziz's sight for no reason, her panic attack is never explained, nor why would she have accused him in the first place and what brought her to her senses. And at the end of the movie, Aziz writes an apologetic letter to her!!"

Yep. It being written in the 20s, as some posters have proposed, has nothing to do with it. These points simply made no sense, even with the social mores of the time and place.

I wanted to like it, and there were parts that were good, but unfortunately the plot got lost.

[–] CoSMiGoNoN (77) 7 years ago

Agreed. This movie is a total waste of time.