The Masala mix starts with a plantation-owning Indian family facing the turbulent rise of East African nationalism and its anti-foreigner fallout, the trauma of losing one's foothold on the wide expanse of African country life and friendships that never seem to follow the dictates of colour and creed. After a first horrifying experience of being thrown into prison, the family escapes to a small Mississippi town added and supported by the extended Gujarati clan which is already well entrenched in the motel business.
The trans-continental migration and the new social web affects the characters in their urges, idiosyncrasies and aspirations in predictable ways. The protagonists are bound to their Indian past and are also in harmony with the brash and brazen present.
In one of those plot-required accidental meetings, the daughter of the family hits an African's home-cleaning service van. This encounter matures later at a discothèque where the daughter's family-sponsored and upwardly-mobile fiance is unwilling to dance, and the home-cleaning service man has been ditched by his exotic girlfriend. They end up swaying in each other's arms, if only to impress those who have let them down.
As the relationship progresses into light-hearted friendship and even some heavy sexual deep breathing over the telephone by the young, lusting black-brown couple, thrown in supposedly to show us how natural it all is, there are some strategically placed asides on the black-brown-white syndrome. The plot supposedly 'thickens' as the young girl goes off with her black beau for weekend by the sea and is caught red-handed in bed by three of the Gujarati clan who pounce upon him, causing a minor riot in the motel. Everybody gets a jolt, and everyone disapproves of the permissive deed. The girl is locked up at home and predictably escapes to catch up with the boyfriend who by now considers her the source of all his troubles and has to be persuaded to take her on as home-cleaning service partner – for life! This is the ground from which the story hardly ever lifts off, either visually or otherwise, to a more profound or deeper turn of insight, observation or realization. It remains grounded despite many an attempt to bring out the irony of the brown running away from Africa being ensnared by a black American. The family had emigrated ostensibly to merge with the American mainstream but had got caught in the under-current, as it were.
It is a narrative film no doubt, with the narrative frame lying so heavy on the film that it never becomes convincing. The camera moves predictably, always catching the plainer and more obvious look of people and things. It is all there, as recognizable and tangible as it could be and yet fails to add up either in mood or content to an effect on the eye or sensibility. We see the surface of things and miss out on the point of their being shown.
In cinema it is the director's eye that helps one see more than we do in the normal course of looking about. We wait for the clue, the telling detail, the suggestion, the allusion, and receive no signals at all, in this case, of the director's view of it all. The director has at best made a neat package of uprooted Indians with their morally overweight baggage, attempting to lighten it with wisecracks and familiar habits – perhaps to make the Indian viewer smile and the foreigner look on at the quaint.
Similarly, the performances maintain an even and moderate temper. None of the actors seem inspired enough to create memorable characters that linger on in memory. They play their roles for the narrative and are all submerged in it eventually. In this perhaps the pitfall of many a social format film which never seeks to go beyond a certain level of interaction and perception? Is this social realism, as it were, or what remains if the hard outlining edge and the starkness of the real are taken away? Mississippi Masala was possibly a story of worth but has been bogged down by obvious social and political insinuations that prevent further explorations. The social format lacks the scale and treatment that can transform it into a saga or a moving tale. The film only proves once again that a story depends entirely on the way it is told.
Chishti, Rita Kapur. (1992). On Screen: Mississippi Masala. Cinemaya The Asian Film Quarterly. 14 (4), p32-33.