Monash University Publishing (Melbourne, Asutralia)
Abstract
In the half-light, a black man's hand strokes Ruth's neck. She flicks him away like an insect, oblivious to the sensual energy she radiates. This is how filmmaker Jane Campion introduces Ruth (Kate Winslet), the central character of her 1999 film, Holy Smoke! This opening scene, of Ruth on a bus, amidst the colour and vigour of a busy Indian city, can be read not only as representing an experience common to Western women abroad in South East Asia,1 but also as emphasizing that Ruth is a luminous and irresistible beauty
