Flashback | 35 years on, Smita Patil's Mirch Masala remains a frenetic journey in search of a woman's right to her space

Mirch Masala could be perceived as a parable of female bonding or a straightforward thriller about the victim and the perpetrator. Twenty-five years after it was made, Ketan Mehta’s Mirch Masala remains an enigmatic mesmeric parable on women’s rights. Like those teen-slasher cheesy sex films where under-dressed girls scamper across dark corridors as a gruesome monster runs after them, Mirch Masala, at its most superficial level, is a parable on predatoriness. Mirch Masala is a frenetic journey in search of a woman’s right to her space. Mirch Masala Trivia Smita Patil’s last film; she died before its release.