Mississippi Masala           4 stars

Mississippi Masala from 1991 is an early work of director Mira Nair who is best known for her movie Monsoon Wedding about a large family wedding in India. It is also an early starring role for actor Denzel Washington who is obviously very well known. Nair starts the story in 1972 Uganda where the Indian family of Jay, Kinnu and young daughter Mina are forced to leave their home by dictator Idi Amin. Amin has declared that all Asians must leave the country after the government took possession of their property. The family lands in the American Deep South, in Jackson, Mississippi where the story picks up in 1990 where Mina (Sarita Choudhury) is now an adult with ideas of her own. Mina works at a local Indian owned motel, a situation that director Nair discovered to be quite common in the South at the time the movie was made. There she happens to meet Demetrius (Washington), a young black man who operates his own carpet cleaning business and stays in the area to care for his father. It doesn’t take long for a connection to be made between the two and the romantic sparks take off with the romantic scenes being quite intense for the time period of the making of the movie. It is when the families find out what is going on that the racial aspects of the movie really become the story. Despite the racism that exists against both Indians and Blacks from whites, the movie exposes the prejudice feelings that members of people of color have toward one another. Thus, despite the friendliness the families may show toward the other race, when it comes to matters of the heart and family, people are not so openminded. The movie is about two hours long and perhaps tries to cover too much ground in that time with more characters than is necessary. It is a worthwhile early effort of Mira Nair and I was glad to run across it. It is also interesting to see a movie from nearly thirty years ago and notice how movies have changed.