Mississippi Masala Blu-ray delivers stunningly beautiful video and great audio in this excellent Blu-ray release
After Mina's Indian family is ousted from their home in Uganda by dictator Idi Amin, they relocate to Mississippi to start a new life. Mina falls for Demetrius, a young carpet cleaner, despite the protestations of their families over their racial difference.
For more about Mississippi Masala and the Mississippi Masala Blu-ray release, see Mississippi Masala Blu-ray Review published by Jeffrey Kauffman on August 10, 2022 where this Blu-ray release scored 4.0 out of 5.
The following paragraph from the diary or journal of one
Christopher Columbus may not immediately seem to
have much to do with
Mississippi
Masala, though I'm about to argue it has at least
some connections, at least if its perspective is
"reversed", in a manner of
speaking. One way or the other, though, this actual excerpt
from Columbus' writings may provide some outright
shock,
maybe even outrage, anyway:
Whereas, Most Christian, High, Excellent, and Powerful
Princes, King and Queen of Spain and of the Islands of the
Sea, our Sovereigns, this present
year 1492, after your Highnesses had terminated the war with
the Moors reigning in Europe, the same having been brought
to an end in the great
city of Granada, where on the second day of January, this
present year, I saw the royal banners of your Highnesses
planted by force of arms upon
the towers of the Alhambra, which is the fortress of that city,
and saw the Moorish king come out at the gate of the city
and kiss the hands of your
Highnesses, and of the Prince my Sovereign; and in the
present month, in consequence of the information which I
had given your Highnesses
respecting the countries of India and of a Prince, called Great
Can, which in our language signifies King of Kings, how, at
many times he, and his
predecessors had sent to Rome soliciting instructors who
might teach him our holy faith, and the holy Father had never
granted his request,
whereby great numbers of people were lost, believing in
idolatry and doctrines of perdition. Your Highnesses, as
Catholic Christians, and princes
who love and promote the holy Christian faith, and are
enemies of the doctrine of Mahomet, and of all idolatry and
heresy, determined to send me,
Christopher Columbus, to the above-mentioned countries of
India, to see the said princes, people, and territories, and to
learn their disposition and
the proper method of converting them to our holy faith; and
furthermore directed that I should not proceed by land to the
East, as is customary,
but by a Westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto
no certain evidence that any one has gone. So after having
expelled the Jews from
your dominions, your Highnesses, in the same month of
January, ordered me to proceed with a sufficient armament
to the said regions of India,
and for that purpose granted me great favors, and ennobled
me that thenceforth I might call myself Don, and be High
Admiral of the Sea, and
perpetual Viceroy and Governor in all the islands and
continents which I might discover and acquire, or which may
hereafter be discovered and
acquired in the ocean; and that this dignity should be
inherited by my eldest son, and thus descend from degree to
degree forever.
Now aside from the dropping jaws this statement may have
engendered in some readers, it's nonetheless an absolutely
fascinating document that
details
one of the more epochal clashes between three of the world's
major religions, with one of them being more or less
vanquished and the other
expelled, and with an underlying subtext of the assumed
moral superiority of the victors (and therefore probably
implied, their religion) doing
the vanquishing and expelling. Now try to imagine the
above paragraph being written by a Jew of the time rather
than Columbus, and
perhaps arguably at least some tethers to
Mississippi Masala emerge, if only in broad generalities
if not necessarily in specifics, and certainly with
regard to how an expulsion based on ethnicity, race and/or
religion can deeply impact those suffering such a fate,
especially when they've been
deemed to be an "unwanted minority" and are expelled from
the only place they've ever known as home.
Close to five hundred years after the Jews were expelled
from Spain, dictator Idi Amin decided he didn't want
Asians in Uganda,
resulting in
another decree to either leave or be forcibly removed. That
sets up the foundational plot element in Mississippi
Masala, which sees a
family
of Indians (as in the "real" kind, not the kind
Columbus misidentified in the "New World") leaving Uganda
under less than felicitous
circumstances to try to forge a new life in the United States.
Perhaps jumping out of the fire and into the veritable frying
pan, the family ends up in
Mississippi of all places, perhaps perceived at least to not
exactly be a bastion of tolerance and acceptance. (There's
some really fascinating
supplementary information on this disc as well as available
online documenting some of the political and even racial
undertones of this move on the
part of Amin, as well as how Indians even ended up in
Uganda in the first place, which again for armchair historians
may have some echoes with
the
history of Jews in Spain, especially with regard to some
reported comments by Amin that basically suggested Indians
were a conspiratorial elite in
charge of elements in the economy, and therefore needed to
be removed.)
The family in question is comprised of Mina (Sarita
Choudhury) and her parents Jay (Roshan Seth) and Kinnu
(Sharmila Tagore), who move to
Mississippi and at least have some other family there already
to help cushion the culture shock. There's some kind of
interesting generational
differences shown here that in a way reminded me of another
release from Criterion I reviewed, Devi, though in this case the
differences are not necessarily with regard to religious belief
but the ability to
matriculate into an "American" way of life. Unsurprisingly
Mina has made the transition without many issues, whereas
Jay at least struggles and
pines for a return to the land he (understandably) considers
to be "home".
The plot thickens somewhat when Mina starts a relationship
with a local black man named Demetrius Williams (Denzel
Williams), and it's in
this relationship and how it refracts into the family dynamic
of Mina's parents (again, Jay in particular) where writer Sooni
Taraporevala and director
Mira Nair start to explore some subtly handled but still pretty
provocative content involving prejudice from any number of
angles. It's an almost
startling deconstruction of one group of "exiled" people
engaging in more or less the same behavior they experienced
before they were thrown out
of what they'd probably argue was their own country, and in
Jay's specific case it's perhaps especially ironic given some
of his activities as a
defense attorney in Uganda in his "prior life".
What may throw some viewers, at least on this side of the
pond, for a loop is the presence of Denzel Washington, which
is necessarily going to
engender thoughts that this is a "Denzel Washington movie",
when really the story is at least as much about Jay as it is
about Demetrius and Mina.
And in fact, the ending in particular would seem to suggest
that Nair is really more interested in exploring the challenges
faced by a character
unable to make a transition to a new environment rather than
a younger person already ensconced in that new environment
who has moved on to
developing a romantic relationship. In that regard, it's kind of
funny to find out in some of the supplements that Ben
Kingsley turned down the role
of
Jay since he evidently told Nair he only played title roles.
Mississippi Masala is presented on Blu-ray courtesy
of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p
transfer in 1.85:1. Criterion's
insert booklet contains the following information on the
transfer:
Mississippi Masala is presented in its original aspect
ratio of 1.85:1. This new digital transfer was created in 4K
resolution on a lasergraphics
Director film scanner at Roundabout Entertainment in
Burbank, California, from the 35 mm original camera negative.
The original 2.0 surround
soundtrack was remastered from the 35 mm magnetic track.
Please be sure to enable Dolby Pro Logic decoding on your
receiver to properly play the
Dolby 2.0 surround soundtrack.
This is a gorgeous looking transfer that preserves the rather
lush palette, though relying now on some fairly distant
memories, I don't quite
recall some of the greenish and yellow gradings being so
intense when I saw this film screened theatrically. Since both
Ed Lachman and Mira Nair
supervised this transfer according to the credits, though, I'll
freely admit my memory may not be reliable. That one minor
point aside, this transfer
preserves a lovely organic quality which offers a tightly
resolved grain field and excellent detail levels, even despite
some of those aforementioned
grading choices. The variety of locations is really stunningly
presented in both Ugandan and American environments, and
depth of field in several
outdoor scenes in both locations is outstanding. I noticed no
compression issues and no significant damage of any kind.
Vis a vis nothing major in particular, and only because
I noticed it again on this transfer, can't someone do a little
stabilization on the Janus
Films masthead?
Mississippi Masala features a nicely wrought DTS-HD
Master Audio 2.0 track.
This has long been a favored soundtrack of mine in terms of
the broad variety of music it offers, and all of that sounds
nicely vibrant and fluid
throughout the film. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly,
and there is a wealth of nicely diverse ambient environmental
sounds in the outdoor
scenes in particular. Optional English subtitles are available.
Commentary features director Mira Nair and
was recorded in 2021.
Sarita Choudhury and Devika Girish (HD; 25:33)
is a 2022 New York City conversation between the actress
and critic.
Sooni Taraporevala (HD; 14:12) is another 2022
piece featuring screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala, speaking
from Mumbai.
Ed Lachman (HD; 16:27) returns to the Big Apple
for a 2022 piece with director of photography Ed Lachman,
who speaks about having
one foot in the documentary world and one in the narrative.
Mitch Epstein (HD; 18:09) completes the New
York City set interviews done in 2022, this one with production
designer Mitch Epstein.
Interestingly, he began as Nair's cinematographer on some of
her documentaries.
Additionally, Criterion provides a surprisingly thick (over 40
pages) insert booklet with an essay by Bilal Qureshi, a
Director's Journal from Mira Nair, cast
and credits info and the typical verbiage about the transfer
along with technical credits.
I'm not sure tone is completely consistent in this often provocative piece, but the superior technical presentation and excellent
supplements make this easily Recommended.
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The Criterion Collection has announced its May batch of 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray releases. They are: Double Indemnity (1944), The Funeral (1984), Chan Is Missing (1982), Mr. Klein (1976), and Mississippi Masala (1991).
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