Review by Vinoo
Language : English
Director : Nina Paley
‘Sita Sings The Blues’ is simply superb. It is irreverent, which is the only way a Sita point of view of the Ramayana can be, right from the start. Indian women, well… the so-called ‘traditional’ Indian woman, never asks for a husband like Ram / Rama. Bhima is the husband they all ask for. Now that is another topic I’d rather not get into. Nina Paley uses some brilliant 2D animation all of which is entirely hand drawn by her over a period of 3 years. She uses shadow puppets as a very interesting device to give a point of view as well as to ridicule some of the points in the epic. The opening scene has Laxmi pressing her lord, Vishnu’s feet
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and the last scene reverses this
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An unbiased reading will tell you the Ramayana is heavily skewed, and against the woman. This is the point that Nina Paley seems to empathize with. Her husband leaves her and while in that state she happens to read the Ramayana, which is where this film really got conceived. It follows the story of the Ramayana where Rama is sent to the forest, Sita is kidnapped by Ravana, Hanuman helps Rama defeat Ravana and bring back Sita, Sita’s purity is questioned, Valmiki gives her shelter in his ashram, Lav and Kush are born and then Ram meets them and Sita is asked to prove her purity all over again when she asks Mother Earth to take her back into her womb. Lav and Kush singing praises of Ram is hilarious. Nina Paley tells her story in parallel with that of Sita’s. The narration is very similar to what a current generation version would be. Sample this : ‘Rama will come here, and you still have one last chance, because once he comes here… You know… Your ass is grass’. There are a lot of interesting points Nina Paley makes though. ‘The Ramayana is only based on as real an event as the Bible is based on’. If a man can wake from the dead three days after why not this eh? ‘Hanuman can carry a mountain but not Sita from Lanka. It could have saved so much bloodshed but then Sita was so pure she wouldn’t be touched by another man or monkey’. In spite of all this she is subjected to trial by fire and what not by Ram until finally she has no choice but to commit suicide (read – swallowed by the earth). Nina Paley does nothing of the sort though.
Some things in the film different from the versions I know.
Brahma with six heads ? (If you’ve read ‘Ka’, by Roberto Calasso, you will know the incestuous Brahma had five heads and one got pinched off by Shiva and he was left with just four).
Sita reciting the Ramayana to Valmiki ?
Ravana playing the Veena with his intestine ?
Thanks to a good ‘animator’ friend for referring this flick.
Watched ‘Shadows in paradise’ by Aki Kaurismaki. He is among my all-time favourite Director’s. Also watched Sudhir Mishra’s ‘Yeh Saali Zindagi’. Was quite disappointing for a Sudhir Mishra film, but was good to see Associate Director Binitesh Baruri and of course Indraneel Kaul, Vivek, Anirban among others in the credits. I’d expected better fare from the Director of ‘Hazaron Khwaishen aisi’, ‘Main zinda hoon’ and ‘Is raat ki subah nahin’ and writer of ‘Jaane bhi do yaaron’. As for the ‘A’ Certificate, I never quite figured the Censor Board and the way they think.
Was good to watch quite a few shorts by students of Gothenburg School of Film Directing at Suchitra, organized jointly with CFD, Bangalore. I had a good screening of ‘Where the gods give up caste’ followed by a discussion with the audience.
Useless trivia : Nina Paley is an animator, cartoonist and free-culture activist, whatever that means. Here is her semi-autobiographical ‘Nina’s Adventures’ which appeared first as weekly comic strip
Attaching one of her early films ‘The Stork’ on the population boom
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and another film ‘Fetch’
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Nina Paley has set a lot of scenes in ‘Sita sings the blues’ to Annette Hanshaw’s songs. Due to copyright issues she has released her films under a ‘Copyleft licence’ and she also wrote and performed a song ‘Copying isn’t theft’. Here is the entire interview with Nina Paley regarding her take on Copyright .
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