Maurice
Digitally restored version of James Ivory’s adaptation of E.M.Forster’s novel. One of the most respected mainstream gay-themed films of its day, it still has broad appeal in its moving portrayal of the agony and ecstasy of first love.
At King’s College, Cambridge in 1909, fellow students Maurice Hall and Clive Durham feel more for each other than mere friendship. But sexual contact, never mind the ‘unspeakable vice of the Greeks’ as their Plato professor calls it, remains taboo. For fear of being ostracised, like one of their classmates, they keep their love secret. Later, after Clive has made a marriage befitting his station, they maintain a purely platonic friendship. When Maurice begins a relationship with the Durham’s gamekeeper, it seems as if he has found happiness.
In melancholy tones, the film deals sensitively with the grief of a forbidden love. The rigorously detailed production design precisely captures the Edwardian zeitgeist, while at the same time, the exquisite composition of the camerawork reveals the narrow-mindedness of a society in which prudery and hypocrisy rule.