“IF WE DON'T tell our own stories, no-one else will.” That’s clearly something Mira Nair believes deeply. Because it’s not just a line in her 1991 drama, Mississippi Masala, but a sentiment she expresses and re-emphasises while talking to Empire. The director has been telling her own stories on screen for over three decades in movies like Salaam Bombay!, Monsoon Wedding, and of course Mississippi Masala. That movie starred a young, cusp-of-stardom Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury (in her debut role) as lovers in an interracial romance, and it explored ideas about race and home with weight and humour. With the film now joining the esteemed ranks of the Criterion Collection, Empire caught up with Nair to reflect on some of the reasons why it continues to endure.
THE TITLE
A good title can go a long way. And from its alliteration to conveying the mixture of cultures at the heart of the movie, Mississippi Masala is an especially good opening statement. “There’s something incredibly empowering about seeing our own words on marquees,” says Nair. “Now our words are everywhere, but back then it was a very uncommon thing. And I wanted to immediately signal in the title that this was about another world that you think you know, but maybe you don’t know.”
THE BIG THEME