(3 of 5)
The problem the novel presents to an adapter lies in a "trick" (Forster's own word) of design, a conscious separation of the meaning of the tale from its main narrative line. That narrative, richly peopled with types Forster encountered on two long trips to India, is quite straightforward. Psychologically, the point on which it is poised is the suppressed emotional tipsiness of Adela Quested. As played in the movie by Australian Actress Judy Davis, Adela is dull at first glance but with a wild surmise glowing in her eyes, her gestures half formed, alternately acknowledging and denying the curious new telegraphy that India is dot-dashing through her ganglia. She will have her adventure! She will touch, as the Anglo-Indians keep refusing to, Indian reality! And she will do so despite the warnings of her fiancé (Nigel Havers, who does the impossible by making priggishness sympathetic).
Adela gains her opportunity through another Englishman, Mr. Fielding, principal of the local school, who is gracefully played by James Fox to represent the better side of Englishness: liberal and reasonable, humane and humorous. Fielding introduces Adela to her balancing (and ultimately unbalancing) Indian opposite, Dr. Aziz. In Victor Banerjee's electrifying performance, Aziz is eager to please and quick to anger, a bundle of nerves ricocheting wildly through the film. He is just naive and self-absorbed enough not to perceive Adela's vulnerable state. He fails to understand that the Marabar Caves are more than a tourist attraction to be undertaken lightly, that they have an almost palpably oppressive symbolic weight.
The caves. What actually happens when Aziz and Adela separate from the rest of their party and go off alone to explore the remotest of them? This is the question that everyone, from humble English-lit student to magisterial critic, has been pondering since Forster published in 1924. All we know is that on the trek to them the conversation between man and woman drifts uncomfortably toward matters of the heart, that they enter different caves, that Adela becomes frightened and disoriented as the result of an echo she hears, and that suddenly she is stumbling hysterically back down the hill, giving the distinct impression that she has been assaulted. What we will never know is whether Aziz followed her into her cave and made sexual advances to her or whether the whole thing was a hallucination. The movie, following Forster, seems to imply Aziz's innocence. But even after a trial, which almost brings the English and the Indians into violent confrontation, even after Adela recants her accusation, no one can be certain.
That is because though the point may seem crucial to the narrative, it is actually insignificant thematically. What is important is, of all things, the echo. " 'Boum' is the sound as far as the human alphabet can express it, or 'bou-oum,' or 'ou-boum'—utterly dull," is the way Forster rather unhelpfully describes it.