Director James Ivory's HEAT AND DUST tells two parallel stories set in India, one in the present and the other in the days of British rule. In 1920s India, a young English bride, Olivia (Greta Scacchi), finds herself in a passionate, forbidden affair with the local Nawab (Shashi Kapoor). In the second story, Olivia's great .. Read more
| Starring | Julie Christie, Shashi Kapoor, Christopher Cazenove, Greta Scacchi |
|---|---|
| Director | James Ivory |
| Genres | Drama |
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Director James Ivory's HEAT AND DUST tells two parallel stories set in India, one in the present and the other in the days of British rule. In 1920s India, a young English bride, Olivia (Greta Scacchi), finds herself in a passionate, forbidden affair with the local Nawab (Shashi Kapoor). In the second story, Olivia's great niece, Anne (Julie Christie), travels to India and there learns of her great aunt's affair with the Nawab, her subsequent pregnancy, and her exile from the British community. Anne's life begins to roughly imitate that of Olivia's when she has an affair with a local Indian administrator (Zakir Hussain) and also becomes pregnant. Merchant Ivory screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala based the film's screenplay on her own acclaimed novel of the same name. Jhabvala was raised in England but after meeting her husband, an Indian architect, moved to India, where she lived for 24 years. Her screenplays AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PRINCESS, HULLABALOO OVER GEORGIE AND BONNIE'S PICTURES, and HEAT AND DUST reflect her own experiences as a British citizen living in a foreign land. At the time the film was released in 1983, HEAT AND DUST was Merchant Ivory's biggest commercial success.
| Starring | Julie Christie, Shashi Kapoor, Christopher Cazenove, Greta Scacchi, Susan Fleetwood, Barry Foster, Julian Glover, Nickolas Grace, Madhur Jaffrey |
|---|---|
| Director | James Ivory |
| Studio | ODYSSEY VIDEO |
| Run time | DVD: 2 hrs 4 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama |
| Language | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 15 Nov 1999 Production year: 1982 |
| Format | DVD |
Ex-BBC researcher Julie Christie travels to India to investigate her late great-aunt Olivia (Greta Scacchi) who caused a scandal in the 1920s — and it doesn't take long for us to guess that she became rather too familiar with an Indian. Adapting her own novel, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala produces a new twist on EM Forster's A Passage to India, using two characters and separate time zones to express similar ideas about cultural collision. It's arty and undeniably exotic, with Christie and Scacchi refusing to be upstaged by the ravishing Rajastani scenery that director James Ivory constantly throws at us.
Much praised by those who admire the work of this team, but found (as usual) mildly bewildering by others, this has at least a large enough budget to produce interest in its historically re-created backgrounds if not its complex plot structure.
very good movie
an ivory merchant classic
julie christie in a very different role
opportunity to see zakir hussain as an actor
Interesting but I will not watch it again.