Heat and Dust (film)

Heat and Dust is a 1983 romantic drama film with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala based upon her novel, Heat and Dust. It was directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant. It stars Greta Scacchi, Shashi Kapoor and Julie Christie.

In 1982, Anne, an English woman, intrigued by the fate of her greataunt Olivia, whose letters and diary she has inherited, interviews the elderly Harry HamiltonPaul, who in his youth was Olivias close friend when they were both living in India.Annes search leads back to 1923, during the British Raj, when Olivia, recently married to Douglas Rivers, a civil servant in the colonial administration, comes to join her husband in Satipur, in central India. Douglas is an attentive husband and the couple seems to be very much in love. When he offers her to spend the summer in the hills, she refuses in order to remain with him even if he is busy with his official duties. However, the conventional narrow society of the English memsahibs, bores her. Mrs Saunders, the morbid wife of the local doctor, warns Olivia against the Indian men who all they think about is to do you know what with a white woman. Mrs Crawford, the Burra Memsahib, is equally apprehensive about life beyond the British colony. The racist Doctor Saunders takes an instant dislike to Olivia. While the AngloIndian society seems to have little to offer Olivia, she is slowly enthralled by India itself. The region is being ransacked by a group of sanguinary bandits, and intrigues are opposing the British community led by Major Minnies and Mr. Crawford against the local ruler, the Nawab of Khatm. The British suspect him of being in league with a gang of bandits, allowing them to operate with impunity in exchange for a share of their booty. ........

Source: Wikipedia