Sita Sings the Blues

The vocalist in Sita Sings the Blues is Annette Hanshaw, a jazz vocalist 75 years ago, now probably unremembered by all but researchers. She is remembered now as one of the integral elements in Nina Paley's beautifully animated first film, produced on her laptop computer over a period of five years. For me, this is a landmark film in dissolving my resistance to animation.

The other elements so well integrated are the personal history of Nina Paley's broken marriage, the analogous situation of Sita's rejection by Rama in the Indian epic, Ramayana, and animated (in both senses) conversation about that epic.

I first enjoyed this in a press screening for the 2008 Seattle International Film Festival. Then I took visiting relatives, including a 9 year old granddaughter, to see it. All were delighted. This is that rare film that appeals both to children and adults.

The animated Sita reminded me of Betty Boop, but with a greater emphasis on the boobs. Time does march on.

My comment on the film: Bloody marvelous. "Sita Sings the Blues" shows how one person with a laptop computer and something to say can make a far more satisfying work than 90% of the garbage that gets cranked out by people with a thousand times the money but one-thousandth the inspiration. Whatever its entertainment value (which I found considerable), "Sita..." is a work of ART; it's an individual statement. But it's not simply the "message", either; in terms of execution, Nina Paley made as effective use of this tool (Flash animation) as I would ever expect to see.

My comment on previous comments: Some have suggested that the piece would be "better" if Paley had left out the autobiographical bits, but that's simply nonsense. Her own story is integral to understanding how and why she chose to tell Sita's story the way she did. It isn't simply "background" to the telling of a story from the Ramayana; the piece is a meshing of Sita/Nina. By making the legendary story relevant to one woman's life, we see that it can be relevant to the lives of many. If the "point" of the work were simply to present the Ramayana on film the way "The Ten Commandments" is a filmed presentation of the Book of Exodus, it would be kind of silly to have Sita break into Blues songs in the first place, wouldn't it? Ms. Paley uses Sita's story as raw material, and uses Annette Hanshaw's recordings as raw material, to create something new and personal and totally contemporary.

I can only hope that John Lassiter sees "Sita". Not that I think Pixar has any need to learn anything from Nina Paley, but maybe he can channel some Disney bucks to her so that it won't take her five more years to produce a follow-up. (Just so long as she's allowed total creative control.)

'Sita sings the Blues' is an independent animated movie that re-tells the Ramayana using mainly 2D animation and some immensely refreshing screenplay. The premise unfolds in three parallel tracks – one, with an American couple living in New York with the husband getting a project in Trivandrum in India; two, three Indians (yes yes, actual Indians!) voicing three shadow like caricatures bickering and debating about the events that Ramayana is popular for and a third, sort of, platonic/musical track is the animation piece where Sita breaks into one of Hanshaw's classics every time a relevant situation presents itself. Like 'Daddy wont you please come home' when she is abducted by Ravana or 'Who's that knockin' when Rama arrives at Ravana's door with his 'vaanar-sena' to rescue her. The moments and the way these songs lend themselves to the scenes are absolutely brilliant.

What also becomes obvious is how unassuming and non-philosophical the whole thing is. Even the dialog between the caricatures in Ramayana is so simple and regular, that one can't help but giggle when the evil Kaikeyi says to Rama on his banishment – 'Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out!' Is that not what she really would have felt like saying anyway? This is seriously funny stuff.

What also gets your attention quickly is the absolutely gorgeous artwork. Be it the drawings that are set to a very 'Rajasthan painting' like motif or the 2D animated waist wiggle that Sita gets into whenever she thinks of her beloved Rama and voices out classics from Hanshaw's collection. There is also one brilliant piece just after intermission (and may I add, that was the best intermission I have ever seen in an animated piece!) by Todd Michaelsen called 'Sita's Fire' are plain awesome. The way these various types of art pieces blend into one another with such finesse without taking away from the main plot is an effort that can only be described as – genius.

But then 'Sita sings the Blues' is more than just eye catchy drawings, a narrative that holds you in place and a much contemporary way to retell the epic with the most unlikely Jazz legend for the songs! It is about demystifying the way Ramayana has been told for so many centuries in our country. We have Rama as a brave warrior who, despite being a just King and a righteous man, falls short of being the perfect husband and father. In 'Sita sings…' not only is he portrayed as extremely human and intensely flawed, but even the 'God' factor is finally skinned out which, I thought, was such a refreshing thing to do. For so many decades there have been murders, riots, rapes and looting in India using Rama's name as the only rationale. It was definitely about time someone gave that a bottom line and presented a much more mature, albeit said in a kindergarten level intellectual sequence, and realistic way to see and use the teachings from this epic. Something that actually helps the American woman in the parallel story track to do once she gets her hands on the Ramayana. What also makes you reflect on your own knowledge of the story is how Ravana, the villain of the piece, is hinted at being the actual good guy in the story! A thought that had never occurred to me. Sure, he abducted Sita against her will but hey, was that not all he had done to wrong Rama? He didn't touch her person. He didn't force himself on her in Lanka. Heck, he didn't even make Herculean attempts to find Rama and finish him off. A thought that throws more light on Ravana's much ignored and definitely much clichéd personality in our modern history.

I strongly urge everyone to see this beautiful masterpiece of a movie not just to appreciate the artistic value it so boldly embodies but to also understand the subtleties with which it tells us how to get our priorities straight without being preachy.

The only 'drawback', if I really had to pick, would be the slightly feminist seeming climax. Maybe it is just me but again, maybe it was a tongue in cheek ploy at looking at how Hindu mythologies have always worked. I am unsure. But somehow I felt it could have been choreographed in a less assertive manner.

Nevertheless, this now is officially in my 'all time favorites' list!

The glamour of India, the glamour of the 1920s, the depth-sounding drumbeat of the ancient mythic world, and the woman who loves the wrong kind of man – Nina Paley gets them all together, along with a relevant chunk of autobiography about a disappointing husband of her own, in her dazzling first full-length animated feature.

In the ancient Indian story, the Ramayana, Sita is the wife of the man-god Rama, and the embodiment of the Virtuous Wife. She suffers one awful punishment and test after another from her mistrustful and apparently other-directed (what will people think? etc) husband. In Paley's movie, Sita steps forward from time to time to sing a torch-y Jazz Era song ("Mean to Me," and the like) in the voice of Annette Hanshaw, a stylistically elegant and not-well-enough-known voice of the '20s.

Sita's story (kidnapping by 9-headed king, rescue by Rama, rejection by Rama, monkey-god help) alternates with modern-day episodes about Nina's own real-life inexplicably disintegrating marriage, and also with the occasional very funny and illuminating conversation about the Ramayana and its meanings among several of the filmmaker's witty and well-educated Indian friends ("The king had four wives . . . no, three wives . . . three wives and four sons, that's right!!. . . . " "You know if Sita had just gone with the monkey a lot of lives would have been spared . . . ").

You can enjoy it just for the luxurious pleasure of Paley's use of Indian artistic styles in motion, from powerful ancient Hindu motifs, to detailed Moghul-ish backgrounds, to deliriously gaudy street-market devotional calendar art.

For myself, I also came away with the best grasp I've had yet on the Rama-Sita story, more than worth knowing both on the archetypal front (Some Things Never Change) and as background to the hundreds of Indian movie stories that take it up from one angle or another.

July 28, 2009 NOTE - now on DVD!!

"The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn't know how other people would take it." BB King

The fine recent animations such as Persepolis and Wall-E have set an intelligence standard hard to equal, much less surpass. While Sita Sings the Blues at least equals those in intelligence and wonder, it surpasses them in imagination considering the parallel stories of wives unfairly abandoned by their husbands are set in modern and ancient times, based on the well-know Ramayana story in India.

Although the animation seems a primitive 2-D next to Pixar's successfully realistic product, director and almost everything-else-in-the-picture Nina Paley suffuses the frames with brilliant colors and variable landscapes. Heroine Sita is shaped in circles and curves to make her voluptuous and expressive in an endearingly abstract style.

I have never seen such richly subversive animation that pushes the feminist agenda without offending. The story, after all, is clear about the failure of mankind over the millennia to stop the sexism that puts women through humiliation without retribution. Paley's success at entertaining with a wildly imaginative palette and lovable characters and cats contradicts, however, the generalization that all women suffer degradations centuries old—she is an artist and entrepreneur, who, faced with a restrictive copyright law that doesn't let her market the film because of Jazz singer Annette Hanshaw' 1920's performance (the music is in the public domain, but not the publishing) distributes her film free (find it in 10 installments on YouTube).

Hanshaw's Betty-Boop like singing is the apex of pleasure in this multi layered story, whose intricacy is richly rewarding, sometimes difficult even for Indians to decipher, such as the three Indian voice-overs who wittily try to figure out the details of the Ramayana legend. I rarely make the time to return to a film before I report on it—this time I will happily return to hear Sita sing the blues and put the beautiful mosaic into order.