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Mira Nair: Mississippi Masala
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In Mississippi Masala, her follow-up feature, Nair further explores the issues she examined in India Cabaret. Only here, even though the main female character no longer resides in India, she still must deal with societal and cultural pressures to conform. The film, set in the sleepy Bible-belt town of Greenwood, Mississippi, is a tale of forbidden romance; the lovers are a self-made African-American businessman (Denzel Washington) and a spirited young Indian-American woman (Sarita Choudhury). Mississippi Masala is a chronicle of clashing cultures that is not unlike Spike Lee's Jungle Fever. The point of each, simply put, is that people are people, and are united (or divided) in ways that transcend skin color.
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After the international success of Salaam Bombay!, Nair was invited by a number of independent financiers and Hollywood studio executives to pitch ideas for her next film, Mississippi Masala. The setting for the film is rural Greenwood, Mississippi, where local motels are owned by Indians expelled from Uganda. With Taraporevala again building the dramatic framework, Nair created a story about the owner of a carpet-cleaning business, played by Denzel Washington, who develops a relationship with the daughter of one of his Indian clients, played by Sarita Choudhury. Their relationship stirs prejudice in both the African-American and Indian communities.
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On Thursday, a friend met producer Lydia Dean Pilcher (who has collaborated with Mira Nair on Mississippi Masala, Kamasutra, The Perez Family and Vanity Fair) on her plane heading to Telluride. And that could mean only one thing. Nair's The Namesake will be shown at Telluride even though the film is not listed in the official programme booklet. But that is a typical Telluride addition -- where films just show up in most unexpected ways.
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Nair herself was born in India and now lives in the United States. She has touched on the experience of Indians in America in earlier films, notably 1991's Mississippi Masala, an interracial romance set in the Deep South.
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Monsoon Wedding, her comedic tak on arranged marriages, was hailed by Roger Ebert as "one of those joyous films that leaps over national boundaries and celebrates universal human nature." Nair's other films include Mississippi Masala, Kama Sutra, and Vanity Fair. She ... directed the "India" segment of the September 11 movie 11'09''01.
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"Mississippi Masala" became a critical and art-house hit, and the Samuel Goldwyn Co. chased after Nair to make "The Perez Family," with Marisa Tomei and Alfred Molina. The offer came at a vulnerable moment, she recalls. She was living in Johannesburg with her professor husband and infant son, wondering how she would mount another film.
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Mississippi Masala