Mirch Masala

I had seen this movie as a kid, but all I remembered was the climax scene, because it was so powerful. I saw it recently and enjoyed every moment of it.

The story is set in colonial India, when the British have disarmed the people, and continue to oppress villagers, through tax collectors called "subedars". These subedars in turn lust for more than the tax.

The movie is about one such subedar, who while on his routine tax-collecting tour to a small village, gets attracted to one of the women. The woman, Sonbai, is married, but her husband has just left for the city in search of a better job. Sonbai(played excellently by Smita Patil) refuses to give in, and while escaping the subedars men, takes shelter in a spices factory.

The gate-keeper refuses to allow the subedars men in, and is determined to protect the honour of Sonbai. Here the cowardice of the fellow villagers surfaces, who decide that it is better to give in to the demands of the subedar, than to face his wrath. The movie successfully conveys the cowardice of oppressed men who cannot even think of rebellion, and even beat up their wives when they protest against their decision.

A brilliant film.

It is a deeply moving, crisply logical (even as the peppers dried in the sun would be), beautifully thought out film. The range of Son Bai's character from the early playfulness, the innocent chanchalta of a happy, hard working village wife, the tender moments with her husband, her loneliness when the husband is gone to his job in the railways, and her fiercely effective rage towards her greedy attacker: the Subedar. Yet, there is no Mother India like (a film alluded to, in a complimentary way, throughout parts of the film's plot line) high drama in her rage; it is very authentic, sincere, not filmy, and the silent alliance between Abu Mian and Son Bai, their clear understanding of what is at stake is depicted powerfully -- with very few spoken words, only Ketan Mehta's brilliant cinematography and Om Puri's and Smita's excellent chemistry. Others, including such stars as my most favorite Indian actress, Dina Pathak (whose mother roles are as profoundly moving as Daisy Irani's, though fewer, child roles), Deepti Naval, Supriya Pathak, and of course, Naseerudhin Shah (only he could have acted the Subedar in just that precise, perfect way to make all other elements of the film work so extremely well), also Ratna Pathak is very good, nearly everyone who acts in this film has done excellently well. One of the world's ten most important films, a timeless classic and firmly grounded in historical time.

A complex and beautifully filmed work. The tale is full of pathos, but the experience is completely enriching! Though it's described in some movie guides as a "feminist" film, do not let that categorization deter you from seeing it.

Absolutely excellent. The hubris of petty officers, the crisis and tension coming from lust and gratuitous violence, the horrifying banality of colonialism, the abuse and victimization of women: all these elements combine to create a tragedy which the Greeks would not have disavowed. We are the transfixed witnesses of a horrendous, and at the same time, magnificent process: the price of a woman's virtue depends on how much it costs for the community. Even feminine solidarity crumbles when submitted to enough masculine pressure… And yet, does it? The fantastic last scene of the film, when everything seemed lost, shows that women have stupendous resources that make one realize the strength of a resistance in which women take part, and I am reminded of the British resistance to Germany during World War 2, when the wives and mothers of soldiers took part in the war effort, and replaced them in the factories and mills of the besieged island. Hurray for women's valor!

Set somewhere in Rajputana / northern Madhya Pradesh in central India between the two World Wars, this movie depicts the sordid daily humiliation and exploitation heaped upon villagers by an over-mighty landlord (Zamindar). When his attention focusses on the women, they unite and fight back, to the shame of their feeble husbands. Starring Naseeruddin Shah - a leading dramatic actor - in one of his more devlish roles. An historical epic as well as a manifesto for the liberation of the oppressed in rural India.