Heat And Dust

The long-running collaborative pairing of Merchant Ivory films and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala began with the adaptation of her own Booker prize-winning novel into the fitfully interesting film, Heat And Dust.

Set in India and spanning a number of generations, the film focuses predominantly on two different story lines, that of Olivia (the stunningly young and seductive Greta Scacchi in her first film role) and Anne (Julie Christie), her great niece, who is exploring the life of Olivia in (at the time of shooting) contemporary 1980's India and Nepal.

Olivia's spoilt life in the Raj of the 1920's is disrupted as she falls out of love with her Colonial British Officer (Christopher Casanove) and becomes attracted to a pompous Indian prince (Shashi Kapoor), with whom she begins an affair. She falls pregnant and aborts the child, not knowing which of her lovers has fathered it, and is shunned by society, condemned to live out her days in the Himalayas.

One of the failings of the film is that it is hard to see why Olivia would be seduced by the arrogance of the Nawab. Certainly he is bestowed with a grandeur by the people around him, conferred upon him by his royal status, but there seems little reason for the affair to begin in the first place. Likewise the juxtaposition of Julie Christie's character in modern day India would have probably worked very well in the book, but here just seems an afterthought.

Extras: Trailer.

Released on 17th March 2008 by 4DVD.

Written by Simon Cole.