Mississippi Masala
                Reviewed by Linda Lopez McAlister
            For The Women's Show, WMNF-FM, Tampa, FL

   "Mississippi Masala" is the second feature film directed by the
Indian-born, Harvard-educated woman Mira Nair (her first was
"Saalam, Bombay!" for which she won the New Director's Award at the
Cannes Film Festival in 1988 and an Academy Award nomination for
best foreign film in 1989).

   "Masala" is the name of a hot, spicy Indian stew and it's a
wonderful metaphor for this story of Africans of Indian ancestry
who were expelled from their native Uganda under the regime of Idi
Amin in the early 1970s and found their way via England to
Greenwood, Mississippi where a small Indian community owns some
seedy motels and small businesses. The film focuses on Ugandan-
born Jay (Played by Roshann Seth), his wife Kinnu (played by
Sharmilla Tagore) and their daughter Mina (played by Sarita
Choudhury).  In Uganda Jay had been an attorney whose specialty was
defending black Africans. He is crushed when Amin orders all Asians
to leave the country and when his best friend, a black who was like
a brother to him, tells him that Africa is for black Africans.

   Eighteen years later, Kinnu is the owner of a little liquor
store in a black neighborhood of Greenwood, and the family lives in
a motel owned by relatives where 24 year-old Mina is a chambermaid
and works the desk, while Jay spends his time writing legal
petitions to the Ugandan government for the return of his
confiscated property and dreaming of the day he can go home to
Africa.

   The Indian community observes Hindu traditions and on her way
back from shopping for preparations for a wedding feast Mina gets
into an accident with a van belonging to D&T Carpet Cleaning.  The
"D" stands for Demetrius, a hardworking, upstanding young black man
played by Denzel Washington. That evening after the wedding Mina
goes with the most eligible of the Indian bachelors to a nightclub
where she runs into Demetrius again.  When he slow dances with her
to try to make his ex-girlfriend jealous, Mina's date gets upset
and leaves so Demetrius takes her home. They begin to see each
other and they fall in love.

    That is the event that causes the plot to turn, for neither the
black community nor the Indian community--especially the still
bitter Jay--is ready for this interracial romance, despite the fact
that earlier the Indian motel owner was eager to assure Demetrius
and his partner Tyrone that Indians and blacks were all brothers
because in American they were all seen as non-white so therefore
colored.  As the dramatic conflicts posed here are worked out, the
film achieves a sense of closure in several ways and on several
levels.  Along the way it is very funny and you'll laugh out loud,
it is touching and will make you cry, it speaks volumes about race
relations in the U.S., and the romance between Demetrius and Mina
is one of the most realistic and appealing portrayals of young love
I've ever seen on the screen--their love and sexual desire for one
another is palpable on the screen and their lovemaking is done with
great tenderness--a decided change from most Hollywood love scenes.

    I guess what I liked most about "Mississippi Masala" is its very
richness.  This is a large, ambitious production shot both in
Greenwood, MS and Kampala, Uganda; it is lushly photographed, and
it's mixture of cultures, genders, generations, nationalities,
races, and classes makes for a rich stew indeed.  Mira Nair is a
superb filmmaker; watch for her little cameo as the first telephone
gossip when the Indian tongues start wagging about Mina and
Demetrius.

    Here's my suggestion for a great evening.  Go to one of the
several Indian restaurants in the Bay area and eat some masala;
then go see Mississippi Masala.  You'll be nourished both body and
soul.

   For the WMNF Women's Show this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women
and Film.