The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 15

THURSDAY 1 JULY 1993 THE AM 18 Edited by SUZY FREEMAN-GREENE Arts Love in the shadow of imaginary homelands A finely shaded romantic comedy Picture: KEN IRWIN 'Mississippi Masala' is a story of love and racism. Here QREG BURCHALL speaks to its star and at right, NEIL JILLETT reviews the film. FILMS Mississippi Masala (Kino); Peter's Friends (Village) NEIL JILLETT interested in being photographed but she had this mass of hair and this beautiful mouth." The role was hers soon after. Now that her accidental career is off and running, Choudhury is hoping for the opportunity to play other Indian characters. It is, she says, her way of embracing that part of her life.

"It's strange how they perceive you. I tend to be put up for anything that's not white Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Mexican sometimes even black roles. There's this assumption that if you're not white you can play everything else. At the same time, as an actor you should be able to play anything, but there's only a few nationalities I think I can really get away with." Since 'Masala', Choudhury has played a repressed Pakistani country-and-western singer in David Attwood's anarchic debut feature 'Wild West' (featured at the recent Melbourne Film Festival); seen action in a futuristic New York in 'Wasteland'; and had a leading role (Chilean, this time) in the film version of Isabel Allen-de's 'The House of the Spirits', shot in Portugal by Bille August ('The Best Intentions'). "I'd also like to explore language more in film, especially the way young people living in urban environments like New York use it.

I believe themes come out of the language as opposed to a lot of film-makers who have the theme and try to adapt the dialogue around it," she said. Choudhury is also hoping to speak to Nair about a new project, although she doesn't see much of the director these days. In a strange case of Life imitating Research, Mira Nair married a Ugandan Indian and is living in that mountain-top mansion. SHE can handle blinding flashbulb blasts from Italy's most persistent paparazzi, but the overpowering presence of her mum's Instamatic was another matter entirely. Sarita Choudhury was no longer the cool and together, movie star; she had regressed to being the self-conscious kid.

don't take a photo of me having my photo taken it's embarrassing," she wailed in mpek anguish. "Go away, go away." Then again, not many stars would bring their mum along on a promotional tour they plan to gef travelling In Australia together once the press commitments are complete and It says a lot about Choudhury, who has been awarded "star" status after her first film role in Mira Nair's new film 'Mississippi Masala'. Choudhury, 26, plays Mina, an Indian girl whose family must leave their beautiful mountain-top mhnsion in Uganda, expelled with alj other Asians by Idi Amin in the early 1970s. They become motel managers in America's rural south, Indians who have never been to India. Mina falls In love with carpet-cleaning contractor Demetrius (Denzel Washington), an African-American who has never seen Africa.

This mix of colors and cultures is something the New York-based Choudhury can well relate to. Born in England to an English mother and Indian father, a Unit- ROMEO and Juliet have yet another go at their star-crossed thing, this time in 'Mississippi Masala' as lovers who are not the parentally approved shades of brown. He is Demetrius, a handsome Afro-American who runs a carpet-cleaning business in the small-town Deep South; she is Mina, a voluptuous Indian refugee from Idi Amin's Uganda. A car accident sparks their romance. Having set up this situation, scriptwriter Soonl Taraporevala and director Mira Nair don't devise any surprises; they are content to let their film amble along for two hours.

The result of this second collaboration between Nair and Taraporevala is good-natured entertainment, a contrast with the spurious romanticism and voyeuristic fatalism of their first, 'Salaam Bombay' (1988). In 'Mississippi Masala' the serious side is handled more confidently and less contentiously than in 'Bombay'. Racism is not justified, but reasons for its particular form in 'Mississippi' is cleverly worked into the drama. In Uganda, Mina's father. Jay (an agonising portrait of despair by Roshan Seth), was a lawyer who defended black Africans.

His opposition to his daughter's affair with a black American stems from resentment at having been expelled from Uganda, the country of bis birth. Seeing himself as a victim of African racism, he retaliates by taking a racist stand against Demetrius. In a neat reversal of this attitude, Demetrius's family are shown as less prejudiced, probably because they continue to be the victims of barely disguised white racism. 'Mississippi Masala' is essentially a romantic comedy, so the message-making against racism is usually softened with humor. Most of the comedy, presented in the style of Jewish jokes told by Jews, is about the behavior of Indian migrants in the US, especially their tendency to cling to prejudices.

For instance, Mina, who is poor and a deep enough brown to call herself a astonishes her friends and family by rejecting as a suitor Harry Patei, who Is rich and pale-skinned and therefore a prize catch for any sensible Indian girl. The film's greatest strength is in the convincing performances by Sarita Choudhury and Denzel Washington as the lovers. Less accomplished actors might not have done so much to cover up a few muddled patches of writing Sarita Choudhury: "1 have no notion of 'home'. I have a British passport, but I've only ever spent a year in Britain." and directing. Washington is especially good in using a low-key style to convey a wide range of emo- Hons.

Who needs enemies? APART from a few snappy lines, -f 'Peter's Friends' has little going for it It sets out to be a naughty, frisky comedy under-pinned by; a warm seriousness and ends up as a cross between a West End farce from the 1950s and an unsuccess- -ful pilot for a trans-Atlantic sitcom. It is about the 1992 reunion, 10 years after the event, of players' in the last performance by a vaguely defined comedy revue company. With their assorted spouses and partners, they are summoned by the aristocratically lugubrious -Peter (Stephen Fry) to his stately mansion. The centre of attention is the alcoholic, depressed Andrew (Kenneth Branagh, who also directs). He has settled In Los Angeles, where be has sold out bis writing talent to -grade television and married Carol, the star of his latest appalling show.

Carol is played by American comedian Rita Rudner. She co-wrote the script of 'Peter's Friends' with her husband, the film's producer, Martin Bergman, a British writer who has settled in Los Angeles. Other characters include Maggie (Emma Thompson, Branagh's wife), a frustrated spinster, and-jingle writers Roger (Hugh Laurie) and Mary (Imelda Staunton), whose marriage is on the rocks because of a Great Tragedy. In the course of the weekend, much liquor is taken, old animosities are revived, new couplings arranged. One way and another, friendship is put under severe strain.

There are some amusing scenes built around the splattering" of smart gags, but this is a comedy that always finds bathos when it hunts for pathos, and seems powered by desperation rather than energy. The characters and performances are tiresome when they should, at least be hatefully Interesting. NEXT PAGE: NU JWett's film reviews continued. attached to one place, I have no sense of land. My childhood memories are attached to places, but just as points of reference, not as any real sense of belonging.

It used to confuse me but now I've just kind of let it go." Choudhury did some dancing and modelling but her first love ed Nations biologist, she grew up in Jamaica, Mexico, Italy and Canada. "I have no notion of 'home'. I have a British passport, but I've only ever spent a year in Britain," she said. "I used to try and figure it out but I've given up. I don't really feel was film.

She graduated in film studies and went to work at various production houses, including the Federico Fellini Studios. She knew of and admired Indian director Mira Nair ('Salaam Bombay') and when she heard she was preparing another film, sent an "audition photo" just so she could meet Nair "and talk her into letting me work on the film, in any Nair, who was searching far and wide for her Mina "She had to combine intelligence with feisti-ness and sensuality" was immediately intrigued by Choudhury's photo: "She didn't look the least bit The opera world loses one of its finest tsars OBITUARY Boris Christoff, 1914-1993 Gobbl, as Rodrigo) and Fiesco In 'Simon Boccanegra'. He also had great success as a recltalist, and was almost single-handedly responsible for bringing Mussorgsky's songs to public attention. Boris Christoff was born In Plovdiv, Bulgaria in 1914 and took a law degree before he began studying music seriously. During bis student years, he was a member of the Gusla Choir.

In WITH the death of Boris Christoff, opera has lost the greatest Interpreter of Russian music since Chaliapin. Christoff, who died on Monday at his home In Rome, was 7. He had been In poor health since a stroke six years ago. Christoff was an Incomparable artist whose strengths as an actor and a singer were absolute and Indivisible. His voice a great, growling Instrument, but capable of refinement, where repertoire of 49 roles In six languages, Christof fs Boris remains his most acclaimed part.

For anyone who saw his masterly performance, there was no doubt: he was a star and a tsar. No one dared upstage him. No one couldl When Christof Fs Boris ruled, glowering at the audience like an outraged, overdressed owl, you felt he could go straight from Covent Garden to the Kremlin, no questions asked. MICHAEL SHMITH 1941, King Boris of Bulgaria heard him as a soloist with the ensemble and provided Christoff with funds to support vocal studies in Italy and Salzburg. He made his professional debut in Rome In 1941, having been Interned In a displaced persons camp after the war.

The following year he sang Pimen In 'Boris Godunov' in Rome and then La Scala, Milan. Three years later he sang the title role at Covent Garden. Although he developed a necessary could cope not only with big Russian roles, such as Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov or Khan Konchak in Borodin's 'Prince Igor, but meaty Verdi roles, such as King Philip In 'Don Carlos' (which be recorded, with his brother-in-law, the late Tito vex Boris Christoff: incomparable. Flying high in the espionage business TELEVISION PHILIPPA HAWKER saved the Unites States billions of dollars, by enabling analysts to judge the Soviet military strength. (The British Government also cooperated In these flights there Is an interview with a British pilot about his training for these missions.) In 1960, a mission went wrong, and a U2 was shot down over the USSR and the pilot captured.

There's copious detail about this incident, much of it from the Soviet side. It is Interesting material, but a digression in a way, it's a demonstration of one of the points made during the show. It's all very well collecting vast amounts of information, but the important thing is how you use it. The episode's sources come from within the organisation itself. There are plenty of talking heads from the US and the Soviet intelligence community: any number of CIA directors and a round-up of the usual suspects, such as Victor Marchetti, the former CIA operative who is in so many films he must have a Hollywood agent.

Actor Alan Howard narrates, lending a note of sinister suavity. tions "tiivlalise" intelligence, he says. The program discusses the disagreements that often took place between clandestine agents and the technology buffs, and refers in passing to undercover work. But by concentrating on the relatively "clean" work of long-distance surveillance, this episode makes the CIA seem a remote, impartial agency that does not involve itself in the affairs of other nations, a kind of bureaucracy that is not really spying at all just using sophisticated toys, reading the papers and looking at pictures. The work that is discussed in most detail is the latter activity: several of the former agents who appear on the program are photographic analysts who examined photographs of Russian military installations taken from weather balloons, spy planes and satellites.

The program discusses at length two incidents: the shooting down of a U2 spy plane in 1960, and the Cuban missile crisis. The surveillance photos taken from U2 planes, which started flying high over the USSR in 1960, reportedly WHEN former CIA Soviet analyst Melvyn Goodman was trying to understand what was going on in the Soviet Union in theJ980s, he didn't rely on undercover agents or electronic surveillance. He (yrned to the 'New York Review of Boohs', or one of several places where journalist Timothy Garton Ash was published. "I relied quite heavily on his work," says Goodman. "It was fari superior to anything the intelligence community was producing at the; same time." Il's not necessarily embarrassing fora CIA employee to admit to consulting a magazine for information in the trade, that's known as using an "open But tonight's documentary in 'The Big Picture" part of British series on the CIA looks at another method.

'High Tech, Low Cunning' concentrates on the technical side of espionage in particular, on the spy planes and satellites employed during the Cold War. During the '50s and '60s the CIA could point to successful operations of, at least, to supplying informa- tton that the Government found no reason to distrust at the time. But in the 1980s, the CIA got the Soviet Union completely wrong. Not only did. it fall to see that the Russian military strength had been vastly overrated.

It also failed to perceive that Gorbachev was a different kind of leader. It didn't understand perestroika, and it didn't see that the economic system was on the brink of collapse. The then CIA head, William Webster, discusses the charge that the agency had failed to predict the attempted coup of March 1991, saying that forecasting specific events isn't the role of the organisation predic NINE SEVEN TEN 6.00 News, Sport, Weather. 7.00 The Big Breakfast. G.

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A garage-owner leaves his beautiful wife for a dumpy and inelegant secretary. He struggles to reason out his attraction, reversing the standard formula of husband-leavlng-wife-for-beautiful-mistress. AO. 11.35 Eat Carpet. 12.35 FILM.

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1982 mysterysuspense. Stars Kathryn Harrold. AO. R. 2.10 FILM.

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