In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based entirely on where my interests lead me.
In the 1960s, Uganda was home to a South Asian diaspora of 80,000-100,000 people, mostly the descendants of laborers brought by the British colonial rulers to build the Uganda Railway. Many remained after construction was completed and became prosperous, in part because the British favored them over the native Africans. They were expelled from the country in 1972 by Idi Amin, a piece of history that I didn’t know before watching this film that provides necessary background for the story of Mira Nair’s* Mississippi Masala, which begins with the expulsion of a prosperous Indian family from their home in Kampala.
Father Jay (Roshan Seth), mother Kinnu (Sharmila Tagore), and their young daughter Mina (Sahira Nair as a child, Sarita Choudhury as an adult) move to the small town of Greenwood, Mississippi, where they have relatives in the motel business. Mina grows up to be a beautiful young woman who has put her own life on hold to help her father, who is obsessed with demanding compensation from the Ugandan government for the loss of his home. She has a meet-cute with local businessman Demetrius (Denzel Washington), who is in a similar situation: he put off attending university to help care for his father after his mother died.
Maybe in a big city no one would blink an eye at a romance between a Black American and an Asian-African woman, but in Greenwood a lot of people feel it necessary to stick their noses in. Some members of the Indian community find Mina’s choice to be a betrayal, and the fact that her family owes money to the family of the young man she was “expected” to marry adds further complications. The white community, whom you might think would not be interested unless one of their own was involved, also have opinions on the subject, and because they include many of the customers of Demetrius’ carpet-cleaning business, he can’t really afford to offend them. His own family is somewhat confused but more accepting, although they also know the “rules” of the American South.
Mississippi Masala was Mira Nair’s second feature film, after the Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay! and in some ways it’s rough around the edges, in particular relying too much on stereotypical portrayals of the many secondary characters. But those difficulties are overshadowed by Nair’s willingness to take on big themes, the natural feel of the central love story, and the sheer beauty and scope of this film, thanks in large part to the cinematography of Ed Lachman.
Lachman distinguished the two worlds of Mississippi Masala—Uganda and Mississippi—through his choice of lenses and film stock, those decisions influenced in part by a book of color photography including works by Mitch Epstein, who served as production designer for Mississippi Masala. Lachman used Fuji film stock to capture the deep greens and browns of the Ugandan countryside, shot with Cooke Panchro lenses noted for their warm visuals (they are also known as “portrait lenses” because of their frequent use in portrait photography). For the Mississippi scenes, he used Kodak film, which is particularly strong at capturing reds, and Zeiss lenses, which produces images with a harder, sharper edge. You don’t have to know any of that to enjoy this film, but it’s a good example of the kind of care used to create what is a truly great-looking film on a modest budget. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 1127
Technical details: 117 min.; color; screen ratio 1.85:1; English, Swahili.
Edition reviewed: DVD
Extras: audio commentary with director Mira Nair; video conversation between actor Sarita Choudhury and film critic Devika Girish; audio interview with screenwriter Sooni Taraporoevala; video interview with director of photography Ed Lachman; video interview with production designer and photographer Mitch Epstein; booklet with essay by critic Bilal Qureshi and excerpts from Nair’s production journal.
Fun Fact: Mississippi Masala was quite the family affair for the Nair household. Director Mira Nair plays one of the minor female characters (identified as “Gossip 1”), the young Mina is played by her niece Sahira Nair, and the production designer is her then-husband Mitch Epstein. And another family-related fun fact: Nair’s son Zohran Mamdani was sworn as mayor of New York City two days ago.
Parting Thought: Mississippi Masala is on one level a love story about people from two different communities, but it’s far from a simple film and touches on a series of questions that remain relevant (and difficult) today. These include: how much are we defined as members of a group (racial, cultural, national, etc.) and how much as individuals with a unique combination of qualities? How much should people stick with their own kind and how much should they mix with others? And is “home” defined by where you were born, where your ancestors came from, or where you are right now?
