Beautiful, interesting, incredible cinema.
An Indian princess, long divorced and living in self-enforced exile in London, invites the tutor of her late Maharaja father to an annual tea party, intended to celebrate a happier past. The two watch documentaries that show the beauty of her native country in the time prior to independence.
Next to the always excellent James Mason, Madhur Jaffrey is exquisitely regal as an exiled princess clinging on to a golden past. Fashioned with luxurious objects whose faded glamor aches with nostalgia, this Merchant Ivory chamber piece flickers with memories of an India that no longer exists.