Heat and Dust (1983) on Netflix
Anne travels to India to trace her great-aunt Olivia, who joined her husband in Satipur. Olivia finds the English society around her narrow and is drawn to the Nawab of Khatm.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb6.4/102,427 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes79%
Trailer
Plot summary
Olivia Rivers arrives in Satipur in 1923 as the wife of Douglas Rivers, an official in the colonial administration, and refuses to spend the summer in Simla without him. Bandits raid the district, and the British suspect the Nawab of Khatm of taking a share of the booty. At a dinner at his palace, Olivia catches the Nawab's eye, and Harry Hamilton-Paul, a permanent guest there, falls ill, so Olivia visits him often. Nearly sixty years later, Anne comes to India with the letters and diary she inherited from her great-aunt Olivia, interviews Harry, and settles in Satipur, where Inder Lal, a civil servant with a wife and mother, acts as her guide.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Heat and Dust (1983)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Heat and Dust ran out of money halfway through production after expected financing fell through, and the cast and crew kept working without pay. Sir Jacob Rothschild provided the money to finish the film after watching some dailies.
- Producer Ismail Merchant sent Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's screenplay to Hollywood studios, which declined it; one executive wrote that they were returning "Ruth Jhabvala's Eat my Dust". He then found the film's financing in Europe.
- Two of the film's characters, the Nawab and his English friend Harry, were inspired by E. M. Forster and his younger friend J. R. Ackerley, both gay men who wrote reminiscences of their time in India.
