MISSISSIPPI MASALA
A film review by Jules Damji
Copyright 1992 Jules Damji
Many East-Indian Americans of first (or even second) generation will identify with Mina's character, played by Sarita Choudry, the London-born actress, in this movie. Her need to assert her freedom and individuality, her curious desire to explore and engage with other people and cultures, her eagerness to be accepted by the society around her, beside her own community, and her social discomfort with exaggerated religious and social rituals with the extended family, is an inevitable aspect of all immigrant-children's "Americaness," whatever that means.
But her identity crises, though not deeply explored in the movie, were even more complex; she was a true "masala": born and partly raised in Kampala, Uganda, where her childhood suffered an indelible trauma of uprootedness which marked her psyche, she was then raised in England, and finally in Greenwood, Miss. Her early childhood in African country exposed her to people of other colour, other races -- people of darker complexion than hers: Africans. Like her father, she did not subscribe to "colour attitudes" that are so pervasive in India and among Indian immigrants in this country. So having an affair (or even being attracted to) African-American was not a taboo for her, as it was for the Indian community in Miss.
Ms. Nair could have developed Mina's complex character to reveal some of these deep anxieties that arise and grip children of such up-bringing and up-rootedness and dis-placement. That aspect of Mina's psyche would have been valuable or of worthy to this group, and any young immigrant in general. But the "identity crises" was not the sole theme of this movie, only one of many. To Ms. Nair, other themes -- "prejudice" and "homelessness" and "dispossession" -- were more important, needed in-depth analysis and portrayal through other characters in the movie.
The ramifications of inter-racial romance between Demeritus, played by handsome and charming Denzel Washington, and Mina explore the racial prejudice of Indians in Greenwood against African-Americans. And the rude awakenings of Asians in Uganda (and East Africa in general) is another form of prejudice based on skin colour is examined in the movie.
As a couple, Denzel and Sarita are absolutely gorgeous -- a match made in heaven. They both exude what the papers on this side of U.S. scream: "sweet sexuality." And no doubt about that!
But far more important, at least for me, was the theme of "homelessness," of the notion of "home," a plot or patch of land, landscape that one identifies with, one proudly calls his "home." That theme, undoubtedly, was driven home quite forcefully and vividly by the character Jay, Mina's father, a Ugandan Indian lawyer, played by Roshan Seth. It touched and moved me profoundly. His (and Demeritus) was the only character fully developed in the movie. Nair takes us into his life in Uganda, where his forefathers came from India as indentured workers to build the railways from the coast to the interior for the British; she relays to us -- through flashbacks -- his obsession with Uganda, his "home," his country of birth, to which he had dedicated his life as a prominent lawyer; his anger and bitterness of being uprooted and expelled penniless from his "home"; his relationship with his African brother Okello; his identification with people and landscape of Uganda; and finally his helplessness and despair as an exile in Greenwood, always subject to subtle taunts by the extended Indian family of motel owners. All this was superbly and intensely acted by Seth. For those who have seen MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDERETTE, he played Omar's (the British-Asian boy and Daniel Day-Lewis's lover) bed-ridden, vodka-drinking, embittered father.
Coming from the same part of world, I could identify with Jay very much, and also with Mina's affinity towards African-Americans (or Black people in general). The lengthy prologue to the movie of Uganda brought back some tearful and heart-wrenching memories of African landscape and people left behind. For Indian-Africans who have immigrated to this country, after having leaved in Africa for more than three generations, the battle for their children's identity problems takes on even more complicated turn. Mina is a case in point!
Where was she really from?
India? Not really.
Africa? Yes, but..
America or England? Well, ...?
(By the way, Mira Nair is married to a Ugandan Indian named Mahmoud, who is a professor of political science at the Makerere University in Kampala. Many aspects of Jay's character and experience in Uganda and in exile in Greenwood were extracted from her husband's book "From Citizen to Refugee." And the serene and beautiful house on the green-rolling hills in Kampala, the site of Mina's childhood, is their present home of residence.
I have met Mahmoud on more than one occasion in Tanzania (my birthplace), where he was in exile, teaching at the university. He is a formidable spokesman).
The movie did indeed portray the stereo-types of Indian motel owners in this country and their prejudice and "narrow-mindedness" about other cultures and people. There are some caustic and bitting true elements in this portrayal; some funny, some rather damaging.
Notwithstanding that, I think she did a good job in delivering her intended themes. The end is touching, from Jay's perspective:"home is where love is."
[Not a little patch of landscape in some remote part of the world, but something closer to heart].
But for Mina, the whole open world is out there waiting for her to explore and find her niche, along with Demeritus, of course. Like her father, who found his "home" in his wife's unrelenting support and love, she too finds her "home" in Demeritus's love -- at least one so infers from the ending.
So get off your *&^%$ing workstations and go see the movie!!!
/jules
-- Jules S. Damji INTERNET : jsd@Eng@Sun.COM Sun Microsystems Inc. LOCAL : jsd@crunch.eng.sun.com
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