Blu-ray Review: Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala on the Criterion Collection

Mira Nair’s sophomore feature, Mississippi Masala, lives at the intersection of disparate cultures. The twentysomething Mina (Sarita Choudhury) emigrated from Uganda to Mississippi as a child after General Idi Amin’s 1972 decree forcibly expelled the country’s entire Asian minority population. The young woman’s extended family is one of many that arrived in Greenwood, Mississippi, under similar circumstances, leading them to grow into an extremely tight-knit community that runs nearly all of the motels in the small town. But the trauma of their forced displacement also resulted in an excessive insularity that’s kept them almost completely disconnected from other communities.

By contrast, the trauma of their forced displacement also resulted in an excessive insularity that’s kept them almost completely disconnected from the other communities around them. That trauma especially looms large over Mina’s father, Jay (Roshan Seth), who continues to petition the Ugandan government two decades later for the return of his stolen land. But Mina has her eyes set squarely on the future, especially after a chance encounter brings her into the orbit of the handsome, charismatic Demetrius (Denzel Washington).

Nair and screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala understand how Mina, like so many children of immigrants, is torn between the traditions of the past and the promises of her contemporary reality. Perhaps inevitably, given her background, Mina feels the pressure of her parents’ dream of her marrying a well-off Indian man, and she almost instinctively knows that they will not approve of her interracial relationship. A beautifully tender nighttime scene, during which her mother, Kinnu (Sharmila Tagore), delicately rubs oil in her hair while not so subtly extolling the advantages of marrying the charmless Harry (Ashok Lath), exemplifies how family is at the source of Mina’s struggle with conflicting feelings of affection and entrapment.

Mississippi Masala is a reworking of Romeo and Juliet that’s enriched by its juxtaposition of cultures. Throughout, the filmmakers highlight how the caste system lives on in the hearts of many of the older Indian characters. At one point, one shameless gossiper, played by Nair, callously quips, “You can be dark and have money, or you can be fair and have no money, but you can’t be dark and have no money.” And that prejudice colors how Mina’s family regards her relationship to Demetrius, whose family is initially very welcoming of Mina.

No less specific is the film’s depiction of the Black community in this patch of Mississippi, from a scene set at picnic where Mina meets Demetrius’s family, to an earlier one set at a Black club where we see petty squabbles and jealousies put a damper on everyone’s good time. Mississippi Masala, though, is as equally and humanely attuned to the similarities between cultures as it is to their differences, as the same dynamics that cause conflict in that latter scene are also at work at an Indian wedding that Mina later attends. The filmmakers even draw a straight line between the tribal solidarity that informs a devious action on the part of Mina’s family against Demetrius’s carpet-cleaning business and the reaction by his friends and family, who remind him that stepping out with a non-Black woman has its costs.

Beyond its vivid depiction of everything from colorism to culture clash, Mississippi Masala is bolstered by the chemistry between Choudhury and Washington. Choudhury, in her debut film role, perfectly modulates her performance between wide-eyed innocence and unquenchable yearning. The film, especially in a deliberately paced and sensuous sex scene, is profoundly alive to Mina and Demetrius’s love for one another. Every flirtatious gesture, glance, and touch is spiked with the intense feeling of youthful desire.

The intensity of that love is occasionally overshadowed by the frequent flashbacks to Uganda, which speak to Nair’s theme of her characters’ search for home. But while the bouncing back and forth between the scenes set in Mississippi and those set in Uganda leaves Mississippi Masala feeling a bit overstuffed, it compassionately and elegantly renders the lasting damage of cultural dislocation and the joys and self-realization that come from breaking free of it.

Image/Sound

The new 4K restoration looks magnificent on the Criterion Collection’s Blu-ray, particularly the color grading, which highlights the stellar work of cinematographer Ed Lachman. The image detail impresses throughout but is most exceptional in the many tight close-ups and in the array of diverse costumes featured throughout the film. The 2.0 surround audio is plenty robust, offering consistently clean dialogue exchanges.

Extras

In a new audio commentary, Mira Nair discusses the genesis of Mississippi Masala and her desire to humanize its characters. Though she makes a point of saying that she didn’t want the characters to be purely emblematic of their respective cultures, Nair does touch on the commonalities between Indian and African American communities in the American South, and how she used those similarities to explore the nature of identity.

The disc also includes several interviews. In one, cinematographer Ed Lachman explains how he used different lenses and film stocks to differentiate between Uganda and Mississippi. Elsewhere, screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala speaks to the importance of research to her process, while actor Sarita Choudhury, in a conversation with critic Devika Girish, talks about the thrill of having had the chance to work with Denzel Washington and several Indian film legends as a young performer. The package is rounded out with a gorgeous 40-page booklet, with excerpts from Nair’s production journal and a poignant essay by critic Bilal Qureshi.

Overall

The Criterion Collection has outfitted Mira Nair’s sensitively detailed sophomore feature with an exquisite new transfer and a superb slate of extras.