Review: the film “Heat and Dust”

After reading the whole book our course watched the film “Heat and Dust”.

Right at the beginning I was somehow confused because of the different initiation of the film. Instead of starting with a short introduction as it was in the book the film directly began with Olivia’s elopement from the hospital after her miscarriage. This anticipated the tension of the reason why Olivia ran away from Douglas.

Another point which belied my expectations was that the change between the 1920s and 1970s became not clear because there was no explicit “theme” like music which marked the times. The fact that the settings were alike made it even harder.

Again and again I stumbled because things were altered. It took a long time to recognize Harry because in the book he was described as a corpulent and not the prettiest man whereas in the film Harry was small and handsome. Another point was that the narrator had a name. But I think for a film it is necessary to name the persons for a better recognition. Furthermore, after Olivia’s elopement in the film Douglas married Olivia’s sister Marcia whereas in the book he married Beth Crawford’s sister Tessie. Starting from the book’s description of Marcia this definitely does not fit because she was even more averse to the typical British society.

I also imagined Mrs. Saunders as well as Ritu in another way because in my opinion their condition was somehow worse than it was depicted in the film.

Despite all the negative facts I think that the film also has good aspects.

The viewer gets an idea of what India looked like in those days and also about the British-Indian society in the 1970s. So the film helped to get a closer look to the setting.

All things considered I would say that the film helps to imagine India and the living conditions there as a British and as an Indian but like many of the film adaptations the content is varied and so somehow disappointing.