Mira Nair’s “Mississippi Spice” begins with some family history that is also a lesson in history – the expulsion of Uganda’s large South Asian population, ordered from the country by military force Idi Amin in 1972.
Still fresh and freshly relevant, “Mississippi Spice,” an award winner at the 1991 Venice Film Festival, has been restored for a run at the IFC Center in Manhattan starting Friday.
After a fiery prologue, the film moves forward 18 years to take their displaced Central family, settled in Greenwood, Miss Jay (Roshan Seth), a barrister in Uganda, managing a hot-sheet motel while her His wife, Kinnu (Sharmila Tagore, in Satyajit Ray’s “Devi,” among other films), runs a liquor store next door.
Jay still dreams of Uganda; Keanu has resigned more to exile. His daughter, Meena (Sarita Choudhary), who cleans the rooms at the motel, is beyond – American so strong she can stand up for the Statue of Liberty, though Liberty is chained. “I’m 24, and I’m still here — stuck here,” she tells her parents.
Luckily, Meena is also a reckless driver. She initially rear-ends the van belonging to the carpet-cleaning business run by the straight-arrow but cool Demetrius (Denzel Washington). It is “the first in a series of confrontations” by the New York Times critic Vincent Canby in his favorable review of his world and his.
As the title suggests, “Mississippi Masala” is a film of constant engagement. The first is a cut from the evergreen paradise of Uganda in the consumer cornucopia of Piggly Wiggly in America. The second follows a flashback to the family’s hilltop villa in Uganda with fake plantations of rich greenwoods. Nair came out of documentary filmmaking, and thanks to Ed Lachman’s vibrant cinematography, “Mississippi Spice”, the landscapes are also characters.
There is also a documentary aspect to the cast. Choudhury, a newborn who grew up in Jamaica, where her father was a biologist, is playing a version of herself (at one point she wears a Bob Marley T-shirt). She was so close to the part that, despite the film’s success, it took her some time to start an acting career. (More recently, he was featured in the “Sex and the City” reboot, “And Just Like That.”) Washington, a decade older, had already been awarded an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, Can be seen as a guide through the film.
Wealthy Indians want to create a common cause with Greenwood’s black population, hoping to avoid trial. Meena’s relationship goes even deeper. “You are like us,” Demetrius’ younger brother tells him. “You’ve never been to India. We’ve never been to Africa.” Both Mina and Demetrius are sweepers and are similarly low caste. Both must avoid family obligations and transcend tribal prejudices. A burglary weekend and a motel room fight in Biloxi have buzzed phone lines, including an edict in front of the Chamber of Commerce and a judge.
The pop iconography of chain restaurants, motels and gas stations (as well as Hindu temples) is characteristic of independent films of the 1980s. But the end of Nair’s story dates back to the ’90s, recalling the post-Cold War golden age when it seemed that American notions of “freedom” and self-invention reigned supreme.
Mississippi Spice
Opens Friday at IFC Center, Manhattan, ifccenter.com
