The police checkpoint scene is a staple in movies about refugees. These scenes are at all times tense, and invariably contain the humiliation and harassment of characters within the remaining stretch of their sprint for freedom. In Mississippi Masala — director Mira Nair’s second of three collaborations with screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala — Sharmila Tagore’s character should endure related indecencies as she flees her native Uganda along with her husband and their younger daughter, ousted by decree of Idi Amin.
Blending politics, romance and — and this might sound odd — broad fish-out-of-water humour, Mississippi Masala’s themes of generational trauma, familial battle and the conflict of cultures would go on to turn out to be a staple of Nair’s cinema.
Watching the movie in 2022 — a vibrant restoration by Criterion, no much less — it feels directly pressing and surprisingly laid-back. The scene during which Tagore’s character Kinnu is separated from her household and humiliated by enemy troopers on the roadside, for example, is probably as tense because the movie will get. And this occurs proper at the start. It’s in any other case somewhat relaxed.
Having been kicked out of their very own nation, Jay (Roshan Seth), Kinnu and their daughter Mina transfer to rural Mississippi (by the use of England), the place they arrange a motel. On a visit throughout the American south, Nair found that almost all of such companies within the space had been, for some cause, operated by South Asians. Most of them had come to America in the hunt for a greater life, however some, like Jay and his household, had been refugees from Uganda.
In Mississippi Masala, she solid the fresh-faced and rebel-minded Sarita Chaudhary, who introduced a rawness to her efficiency as Mina, reverse the current Oscar-winner Denzel Washington, who, because the carpet cleaner Demetrius, was already displaying indicators of the charismatic depth that may go on to turn out to be a marker of his stardom.
Ostensibly an interracial love story between 20-somethings, Mississippi Masala commonly turns right into a grave anti-war drama as quickly as the main target shifts from Mina and Demetrius to her father Jay, who pines for his homeland in just about each scene.
Through the course of the movie, Jay writes quite a few letters to the authorities again ‘home’, demanding that he be compensated for his stolen land, and rehabilitated along with his dignity intact. It’s a tragic, nearly pitiful ritual that jogged my memory of the letters that college professor Shiv Kumar Dhar wrote to the presidents of America in Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s very related movie Shikara.
That movie handled displacement otherwise, with each Shiv and his spouse, Shanti, feeling an analogous sense of devotion for his or her homeland. But in Mississippi Masala — a movie informed by means of the attitude of younger Mina — solely Jay feels hooked up to the nation of his beginning. Mina, alternatively, is caught between cultures, having grown up American, but in addition compelled to juggle her Indian parentage and Ugandan roots. It’s an uncommon scenario to be in for anyone, however maybe extra uncomfortable whenever you’re a younger girl within the throes of ardour.
You would possibly bear in mind Nadia from Indian Matchmaking, of all issues, briefly speaking concerning the strangeness of being a Guyanese Indian in America. US Vice President Kamala Harris, alternatively, has additionally spoken about her shared Indian and Jamaican heritage.
The underlying seriousness of Mina and Demetrius’ romance comes from the realisation that each the Indian group in Africa, and the African group in America, are descended from indentured labourers and slaves. In a heated trade in the direction of the tip of the movie, after each the Indian and the Black communities have disapproved of their union, Demetrius tells Mina’s father that they’re each outsiders, and but, the politics of oppression will at all times punish the Black man extra mercilessly. “I know that you and your daughter ain’t but a few shades from this right here,” a furious Demetrius says, pointing to his personal face.
They’re in the identical metaphorical boat, centuries after their ancestors had been transported to unusual new lands on bodily ones.
Nair was thought to be one thing of a scorching commodity in Hollywood after her debut characteristic — Salaam Bombay! — turned solely the second Indian characteristic to attain an Oscar nomination within the Best Foreign Language Film class, because it was then named. She was courted by studios to make rom-coms, and a few years later, would reject a proposal to direct a Harry Potter movie. For higher or for worse, her profession has unfolded on her personal phrases. Perhaps the one indication that she as soon as compromised on her morals may very well be felt in her impersonal 2009 biopic of Amelia Earhart, starring Hilary Swank and Richard Gere. If something, it proved that her instincts had at all times been proper. Amelia stays her greatest bomb, and least-liked movie.
Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story adaptation final 12 months reminded audiences of simply how important it’s to push again in opposition to the otherisation of minorities. This pattern has seen a very alarming rise in our personal nation, the place it’s now not restricted to the fringes prefer it ought to be, however has invaded the mainstream. Like West Side Story, Mississippi Masala can also be a retelling of Romeo & Juliet, and at a time when Indians internationally are as soon as once more devoting troubling ranges of vitality into protesting in opposition to interfaith love (and making villains of the marginalised), the movie capabilities as a crucial, and considerably idealistic reminder that finally, love wins.
Post Credits Scene is a column during which we dissect new releases each week, with specific give attention to context, craft, and characters. Because there’s at all times one thing to fixate about as soon as the mud has settled.
