Film Review
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's screen adaptation of her Booker Prize winning
novel
Heat and Dust is a
sumptuously crafted and darkly compelling affair, one of her grandest
and more successful collaborations with the director James Ivory and
producer Ismail Merchant. The international success of Richard
Attenborough's
Gandhi (1982) provoked a sudden
reawakening of interest in the UK for the British Raj, and
Heat and Dust was just one of
several big budget period productions which benefited from this
phenomenon. Others include: David Lean's
Passage to India (1984) and the
hugely successful television series
The
Jewel in the Crown (1984). In common with many other
Merchant-Ivory films,
Heat and Dust
is essentially a study in identity and cultural conflict, in which the
social and political constraints of a past era conspire to prevent the
main protagonist(s) from finding personal fulfilment.
The film draws parallels between the experiences of two women separated
in time by sixty years, a rootless British investigative journalist
Anne and her great aunt Olivia. The stories of the two women are
interwoven in a way that emphasises their similarities and the stark
differences in their social circumstances. Both women are
intoxicated by the mystique and beauty of India and seek to discover
their true identities through a fantasised view of a country that
appears to offer them a spiritual renaissance. Whereas Olivia
becomes a social outcast through her obsession, forced to exchange one
kind of captivity for another, Anne is liberated by it. The
experiences of the two women provide a kind of allegory for the
spiritual rebirth of India after its liberation from British rule.
Heat and Dust has all the
mesmerising visual allure of any other Merchant-Ivory period
production, but it has a noticeably more poetic feel than most.
Rather than simply relating a series of dramatic incidents as in a
conventional melodrama, the film concerns itself with the emotional
journeys of the two central protagonists as they pursue their quest for
identity. Julie Christie and Greta Scacchi are well-chosen to
play the two independently minded women (Anne and Olivia respectively)
who are strikingly similar in their desire to discover who they are,
and yet so perfectly representative of the era to which they
belong. Christie's Anne is very much the modern woman (circa
1980), completely in control of her life and an equal for any man she
may encounter. Next to her, Scacchi's Olivia appears like a
spirited bird in a cage - she flaps her wings and yearns to escape but
is prevented from doing so by the starched dictates of decorum and
etiquette. Both actresses portray their characters
sympathetically and in a way that compels the spectator to see them as
kindred spirits (one might almost be the reincarnation of the other),
although it is ultimately Scacchi's character who is the more
interesting - she is as much a victim of the Raj as the oppressed
Indian people for whom she feels such a strong affinity.
Heat and Dust is an intensely
haunting evocation, not only of the era in which the story takes place,
but also of that yearning we all have to discover who we are and where
we might be going. Of the many great films that James Ivory
worked on with Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, this is perhaps the most
emotionally satisfying, and the most unsettling.
© James Travers 2012
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Next James Ivory film:
Maurice (1987)
Film Synopsis
In 1982, a reporter named Anne travels to the town of Satipur in India
to find out more about her great aunt Olivia, who caused a
scandal sixty years previously. Having come across Olivia's
letters, Anne is eager to find out more about her, and by visiting the
places where she stayed she hopes to make a spiritual connection with
her. She takes lodgings at the house of Inder Lal, who offers his
services as a guide and lover. It turns out that Olivia was
something of a free spirit. When her husband, Douglas Rivers,
advises her to return to England to escape the worst of the Indian
summer, she chooses to stay, fascinated by the country, its people and
their traditions. Her chief interest is the wealthy local prince,
the Nawab, who publicly defers to the British Raj whilst secretly
lending his support to brigands and anti-British rebels. Weary of
propriety and heedless of the consequences, Olivia begins a love affair
with the Newab. When she realises she is pregnant, she faces a
terrible dilemma. Uncertain who the father of her unborn child
is, Olivia decides she has no choice but to have an abortion.
Sixty years later, Anne finds herself in a similar predicament...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.