The Spice
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The Spice |
| Original title | Mirch Masala मिर्च मसाला |
| Country of production | India |
| original language | Hindi |
| Publishing year | 1986 |
| length | 118 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Ketan Mehta |
| script | Ketan Mehta , Shafi Hakim |
| production | National Film Development Corporation |
| music | Rajat Dholakia |
| camera | Jehangir Choudhary |
| cut | Sanjiv Shah |
| occupation | |
| |
The Spice ( Hindi : मिर्च मसाला , mirc masālā ) is an Indian feature film by Ketan Mehta from 1986.
action
The film is set in a village in Kathiawar in September 1941 .
The local "Subedar", a tax collector in colonial India , rode into a village with his people and stalked the women who were fetching water at the lake. He becomes aware of the self-confident Sonbai, who gives him water to drink.
In the village all adults except for the village teacher are illiterate. With a mixture of fear and respect, the important men of the village (village chiefs, traders, priests, etc.) curry favor with the tax collector. They allow its men to steal food and cattle from the village and try to satisfy its needs. A festival is celebrated in his honor in the evening. The tax collector actually wanted Sonbai for the night, but since she has a husband, he has to make do with Lakhmi for sexual pleasure, which is brought to him by a villager. The hope of the village chief that he would waive some of the tax for the village is not fulfilled the next day.
On the day the tax collector arrived, Sonbai's husband Shankar was offered a job with the railroad and left the village the next day, leaving her on her own without male protection. During the day the tax collector checks Sonbai, but she slaps him in the face for his advances. Pursued by the tax collector's assistants, she escapes to the village's chilli factory, where the women grind mountains of dried chillies into chilli powder. The old guard Abu Miyan defends the property against the persecutors. Several attempts to get Sonbai to give up and Abu Miyan to open the gate fail.
Instead of defending the women of the village, the village chief obeys the will of the tax collector, but has no problem using domestic violence against his wife when she sends the daughter to the village school against his will. A village council convened by him decided to extradite Sonbai, only the village teacher objected that giving in would only lead to further claims by the tax collector. The mood against Sonbai is also turning against the women in the chilli factory; she should give in and submit to him for the good of the village.
Since the efforts of the village chief and his village council were unsuccessful, the tax collector storms the factory premises. Abu Miyan, the only man in the village with the courage to stand by his convictions, dies in the process. When the tax collector enters the factory to get Sonbai, the women shower him with freshly ground chili powder. He sinks to the ground, screaming in pain.
background
Director Mehta wrote the script together with Shafi Hakim based on a story by Gujarati writer Chunilal Madiya (1922–1968). The dialogues were written by Hriday Lani and Tripurari Sharma . Although the film is in Hindi, they used idioms and idioms from the Gujarati.
Awards
At the National Film Awards in 1987, the film was awarded three prizes. Suresh Oberoi was recognized for Best Supporting Actor and Sanjiv Shah for Best Editing . The award for the best film in Hindi was shared between the director Ketan Mehta and the National Film Development Corporation as producer. In addition, The Spice was named best film at the Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards in 1987.
The spice was shown at the 1987 Hawaii International Film Festival and won the grand prize for best feature film. The film was also a competition entry at the 15th Moscow International Film Festival in 1987, but without winning a prize there.
literature
- Entry to Mirch Masala . In Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema , p. 472
Web links
- The spice in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema , p. 472
- ↑ Mirch Masala at NFDC
- ↑ Mirch Masala at NFDC
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from January 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
