Two Rhapsodies in One India

HEAT AND DUST portrays the fictional lives of two English-women who move to India, one in the second decade of this century and the other in 1982. Based on Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's novel of the same title, the film beautifully transcends limitations of time as it alternates between the lives of its two heroines, Olivia in 1923 and the contemporary Anne. Unlike Gandhi, which presented a sprawling panorama of Indian landscape and culture from the perspective of the great leader, Heat and Dust is an essentially private affair. It shows us India through the eyes of two women struggling to come to terms with Indian culture and especially Indian men.

Prawer Jhabvala's adaptation of her novel rings true throughout the film. Before they can understand the society they have chosen to enter. Anne and Olivia must learn to live with the tedious Indian climate and landscape. As an Englishwoman who married an Indian, Jhabvala understands better than anyone the difficulty of living between cultures, neither Indian nor fully British. She endows the relationships between Anne and Olivia and their Indian lovers with a passion and tension which could only derive from common experience.

Director James Ivory manages against many odds to intermingle scenes from the two time periods without detracting from either story. He mixes scenes which dwell on common themes, such as the infusion of British custom into the complex Indian society, and the heroines' search for emotional and physical fulfillment. Unlike The French Lieutenant's Woman, which presented concurrent plots clouded in fantasy and misty symbolism, Heat and Dust successfully intertwines the two plots such that both seem real and vibrant on their own. Yet it is only when they are considered as parts of a whole that the true power of the film becomes evident.

Both Anne and Olivia are very much products of their own time, and their different lifestyles and beliefs contrast sharply with Indian society, which seems hardly to change in 49 years. Although Indians wear Western clothing in 1982, their beliefs and social structure seem as static as the unbearable heat and dust which return with a violent brutality each year. Olivia and Anne, or the other hand, couldn't be more different physically and socially. Both must adhere to the mores of Indian and British societies which apply in their time, although they seem to share a restless vitality which ultimately marks them as outsiders.

JULIE CHRISTIE plays the modern Anne, who travels to India to retrace her great aunt's experiences in India. For Anne, Olivia is more than just a romantic figure; she also represents the key to Anne's own willingness to confront her feelings about living in the chaotic modern environment. Christie sculpts Anne into more than just the quintessential female of the 80's, striving for independence after an unhappy affair with a married man. Anne radiates intelligence; her ability to live in the present ultimately depends on her understanding of the past.

In her quest for self-knowledge. Anne visits all the places where Olivia lived, trying to reconstruct Olivia's life. Although confused, Anne is essentially straightforward; we understand her much more easily than the mysterious Olivia. Played by the beautiful Greta Scacchi, Olivia is torn between her love for and obligations to her English husband and an uncontrollable fascination with an Indian prince. Olivia's desire for the prince (Shaski Kapoor) enables her to ignore his devilish and corrupt ways, and see only his charm.

Scacchi's Olivia dominates Heat and Dust, since her experience is much more of a departure from the norm than Anne's simple quest for self-knowledge. Caught between the very proper English society which has colonized India and the ritualistic male-dominated Indian culture, Olivia falls victim to her own emotions, unable to sit at home waiting for her husband Douglas to return at night. Olivia's passions overpower her highly disciplined self-control, and she consequently dissipates after leaving her husband, living first as the prince's mistress and eventually alone.

We are drawn towards Olivia, whose subtle beauty and romantic refinement pervades the film even during the modern-day scenes. But Olivia's power comes from her mysteriousness, her eventual desire to live alone, and Scacchi never lets us enter too far into Olivia's mind. The actress captures Olivia's repressed sexuality and carefully repressed feelings: her Olivia represents all women caught between Victorian prudishness and modern openness and free love.

In the end Olivia's life permeates Heat and Dust, and enables Anne to live as Olivia ought to have lived, single, independent and pregnant. The cast of supporting actors gives splendid performances. Nickolas Grace's Harry bridges the gap between Olivia and Anne. During the 1920s he is the carefree, slightly morose house guest of the prince who becomes a confidant of Olivia. In 1982 he tries to explain to Anne what motivated the earlier characters Grace gives a delightfully stylized and vapid performance endowing Hany with deeply sunk eyes and a degenerate sense of humor.

Heat and Dust is a magnificent composition, as beautiful as any of the Schumann pieces that Olivia plays throughout the film. The cinematography is as lovely as the acting, and the two plots, so cleverly woven together, mesmerize us for the entire two and a half hours. The climax of the film shows Ivory at his best: Olivia and her princely lover look serenely out of the window of their house, just as Anne peers in, looking for remnants of her aunt. Olivia and Anne seem to look straight into each other's eyes, but seconds later we realize that they are looking through each other, each caught up in the complicated web of their own obsessions.