dunlap27406
I love this movie. I first saw it as a preteen and did not understand the concept. I have recently got the DVD as a gift and watch it over and over again and learn something else from it each time. Sarita Choudhury is one of the best actresses of our time and I respect her decision to not want to go "Hollywood". She has appeared in movies with substance and a message unlike the movies that are coming out in mainstream Hollywood. Denzel Washington is a great actor in this movie as well. Playing Demitrius, you really see his versatility as an actor. Mississippi Masala touches a new kind of racism not shown in movies before. Dark skin vs. light skin seems to go across every ethnicity in the world and I respect Mira Nair for making this film. Although the movie or its actors didn't receive the attention or awards (i.e. an Oscar) for their extraordinary performance, this is a must see movie and it will change your mind about the caliber of movies you choose to see from now on.
NewEnglandPat
The theme of interracial romance is the setting for this fine drama and focus on the divisions between black Americans and South Asian communities. Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury are appealing as the central figures from different backgrounds and struggle to stay together amid the controversy that swirls around them. Washington and Choudhury have a nice chemistry that works very well in this picture and makes their romance even more believable. They have their share of ups and downs and face challenges to their relationship like any normal couple. The movie touches on the origins of the immigrant status of the South Asians which began when they were expelled from Uganda many years earlier. The resentment towards blacks is a recurring theme in the movie as they settle into their new communities in the deep south. The film has a bouncy music score that adds flavor to the story and a nice cast weaves everything together in fine style.
Lee Eisenberg
In the early 20th century, the English government moved several people from India to Uganda to build the railroad. Some of the Indians stayed and became lawyers, physicians, etc. When Idi Amin came to power in the early 1970s, he expelled all non-black Africans. Some of the Indians moved to Mississippi and began running motels."Mississippi Masala" focuses on this. Mina (Sarita Choudhury) is the daughter of an Indian family who fled Uganda for Mississippi. She develops a relationship with Demetrius (Denzel Washington), a local man. Her family does not approve of her dating a black man, and Demetrius' friends don't like him dating an Indian woman.The movie shows many things, in particular how both the blacks and the Indians were displaced from their ancestral lands. Also, it shows how the blacks are racist towards the Indians and vice versa. As Demetrius reminds Mina's father: "Your skin is just a couple of shades from mine." Regardless of whether or not these sorts of things happen a lot, the movie does a very good job with it all.
floriadarcy
This movie suffered greatly from trying too hard. The attempted blend of romance, comedy, political commentary, and racial issues came across uneven and not particularly enlightening. A movie with these themes would seem to have great potential, but it was greatly hampered by an trite, unoriginal script ("Home is where the heart is, and my heart is with you" is its parting phrase) and dull, uninspired direction. Denzel Washington's acting is excellent, but even he cannot save this dull, insipid movie, hampered as he is by the above elements, not to mention a leading lady whose acting is only slightly better than that of Ruby Keeler in one of her worst big-budget movies. As Mina, Sarita Choudhury's acting is dull when it is meant to be sincere and completely unconvincing when trying to convey the true emotional anguish that her character supposedly feels when separated from her "true love," a man that I believe she has known less than a week.
The racial issues the movie tries to raise (interracial relationships between people considered by "whites" to be "of color" and therefore the same) is an important one, as is the treatment of African-Indians in the latter half of the twentieth century, but many of the minor characters from both races are obviously based on some of the worst stereotypes of both races (Indian cheap motel owners and lazy black teenage boys) that I couldn't seem to muster any sympathy for them.The ending, where most movies would attempt to at least make clear their object, seems in this movie to be completely randomly chosen. After deciding to return to Mississippi from a trip to Sudan to try to reclaim his lost property, Mina's father Jay wanders out onto a street in Uganda to watch people dance, and then takes a completely random stranger's child from his parents' arms and continues to watch the dancing. My only guess is that they ran out of budget and decided to just stop the movie there.
Overall, this movie is not really worth watching. If you want to study immigrant or minority experiences in America, do so with a more professional film.
AD
