Blu-ray Review: A Passage to India

THE MOVIE: 3 stars out of 5
I must confess, I came to view this film with a totally open mind, having never seen it before, either on the big screen or on any home video format. A Passage to India stars many award winning actors, including Peggy Ashcroft who won the Best Actress in a Supporting Role for this film, Judy Davis, Victor Banerjee, James Fox and Sir Alex Guinness. Briefly, Adela Quested (Davis) journeys from England to India with Mrs. Moore (Ashcroft) to see her prospective husband who is the son of Mrs. Moore and a magistrate in a small town. The English in India that they visit are quite rude to the local population and warn both of them not mingle with the local population. However, both wish to meet the locals and venture out and meet a local doctor, Dr. Aziz, who invites them to visit some mysterious caves. It is on a visit to these caves that Ms. Quested has some sort of mysterious experience that lads her to falsely accuse Dr. Aziz of attempting to rape her, resulting is a show trial where Dr. Aziz is the cause celeb and which threatens to unwind the fabric of English rule in India.

Frankly, while A Passage to India was nominated for best picture in 1984, I found it to be a tedious film and very slow to unfold. At 163 minutes, this is one long film, way too long in this reviewers opinion. The film does boast some excellent acting from the entire cast (with the exception of the religious character played by Sir Alex Guinness who I felt was totally miscast in this role), excellent cinematography and a wonderful musical score. However, in the end, the film just didn’t do it for me and is not one that I can recommend that you purchase. I would rate this one as a rental only.

THE VIDEO: 4 1/4 stars out of 5
Encoded with AVC, A Passage to India is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1:66:1, meaning that this film should have rather thin black bars on the sides rather than on the top and bottom. Overall, the color on this release is quite good although at times, a bit inconsistent with various colors, including skin tones varying from scene to scene. For the most part, detail is quite good, especially closeups, where the fine textures of the actors’ skin is clearly visible. On the down side, I felt that the black level of the film was below average, robbing the film of the three dimensional image that we have come to expect from high definition transfers. Overall clarity suffered a bit as well as a result of the mediocre black level. On the whole, I would rate the look of this film as mediocre and a bit of a disappointment.

THE AUDIO: 3 1/2 stars out of 5
The audio on this release is presented in Dolby True HD and is nothing to wrote home about. I am sure that, given the sound design of the film that it would have sounded just as good without a lossless track. As one would expect from a film of this type and vintage, the sound field comes mainly from the front three speakers with little use of the surrounds. The surrounds are mainly engaged during the various scenes that occur on trains where the clickitty clack of the trains on the track fill the room and have the appropriate heft that one would expect. On the whole, the dialogue is clear and distinct and well presented in the mix. I must say that I was a bit disappointed with the fidelity of the musical score which lacked the fullness of modern mixes although the imaging and sound staging was quite good. I am sure that this was not the result of the encode but of the sound design itself. The best we can expect from lossless tracks is that they faithfully reproduce the original master, which I am sure was the case here.

IN CONCLUSION
While A Passage to India has some wonderful qualities, it does not have enough of them for me to recommend this release for a purchase. I would rate this release as a rental only.

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