We’ve been talking about this film around here for a while: Sita Sings the Blues, by the New York filmmaker Nina Paley. Excerpts of it have been floating around for over a year — our friends have seen parts of it at a festival called ArtWallah in LA, and then at a rooftop screening at her place in Brooklyn. It’s an animated story that partly tells the Hindu tale of the Ramayana and also tells the story of a white woman going to India and dealing with this big mess in her personal life. Sounds like it could make for a rough mash-up, but this film works beautifully. It won a special jury mention at the Berlin Film Festival. Our colleague, Arun Venugopal in the WNYC newsroom, shared this from a friend, who did some voiceover work:
“She [Paley] uses different animation styles, jazz music from the 1920s and juxtaposes her personal life with that of Sita. Then last year she invited me and two other people — including filmmaker Manish Acharya (Loins of Punjab Presents) in a recording studio and talked to us about Ramayana. The three of us are narrators in the film (as Indonesian puppets) - giving our own modern day interpretation to the Ramayana. It is a very progressive/feminist perspective of the story. And the film is VERY funny.”
Nina Paley blogs here
You can also watch the trailer here:
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2 Comments
I saw this film (or the working version of
it) at Long Island’s Cinema Arts Center in
2007. While it sounds like an odd combination
it is in fact a lovely piece of work. Fans
of 1920’s music will enjoy it immensely and
animation enthusiasts will see some beautiful
work. If you like both, you’ll be in paradise—- oops, sorry, Nirvana!
People talk about “world music” and other forms of multicultural art, and most of it is vague, goofy junk, but this film is different. It has been put together _right_. The pieces fit together and they reflect and support one another. It’s not only a lovely piece of work, it’s a work of genius. I fear, though, that the present channels of distribution won’t be able to serve it well — the mainstream is geared to regard animation only as funny stuff for children. But maybe that will change.