{"id":609,"date":"2010-04-26T14:14:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-26T14:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2010\/04\/movie-review-sita-sings-the-blues-2.html"},"modified":"2011-06-07T00:06:55","modified_gmt":"2011-06-07T00:06:55","slug":"movie-review-sita-sings-the-blues-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2010\/04\/movie-review-sita-sings-the-blues-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review : Sita sings the blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sita<\/a><\/p>\n

Sita sings the blues is quite unlike anything I\u2019ve seen before. First off it\u2019s an animated film for adults, based on Indian mythology, and is a feminist take on Sita\u2019s predicament. It also mixes the mythology with a modern day interpretation by three unseen panelists \u2013 called shadow puppets, whose voices we hear (Aseem Chhabra, Manish Acharya<\/a> and Bhavana Nagulapally). The film is set to the music of Annette Hanshaw<\/a>, which I had not heard before and found charming.<\/p>\n

\"Sita<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The three shadow puppets<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

I did like the film although it seemed a bit slow in parts. Paley depicts the story of the Mahabharata, from Sita\u2019s point of view, and tries to find similarities in her and Sita\u2019s stories. Paley, we see in the film, had a happy marriage which ended when her husband left her after moving to India for a \u201ctemporary\u201d work assignment.<\/p>\n

The animation in this film actually reminds me of the animation I used to see in Indian kiddie films on TV when I was a child \u2013 the undulating waves, the stilted movement. But the color palette of the film is rich and colorful, and the characters are pretty lush themselves. Sita\u2019s animated character reminded me very strongly of Betty Boop \u2013 I think it was the wide open eyes (Sita\u2019s are round circles), and the rather well-endowed figure with the tiny, tiny waist. Ram was a beautiful blue, all shoulders and wide chest. Very cute. <\/p>\n

\"Sita<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Sita : Cry me a river !<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

The other graphics are very beautiful too. There is a whimsical moon, a fiery yellow sun, a Valmiki who plays the violin as Sita cries a river. In fact most of the characters are jaunty and little flippant. And that\u2019s where I think Paley would differ from a desi creator. I, with all my Indian baggage, and what with the notions of Sita as \u201cMata\u201d, would not portray Sita as buxom \u2013 which she is in the film, blowing heart shaped kisses to the love of her life, Ram (and my Mom would have a fit if I did). I actually even have trouble describing her as such. <\/p>\n

\"Ram<\/a><\/div>\n

Paley\u2019s version of the Ramayana, is her interpretation of course, but I quite liked the fact that she gives Sita a voice, and a place to vent. As Sita voices her blues in Hanshaw’s song \u201cAm I blue\u201d, and weeps a steady stream of tears in \u201cMean to me\u201d, you feel really bad for her in her helpless state. Most desi interpretations of the Ramayana gloss over Sita\u2019s treatment at her husband\u2019s hands, or give us the \u201ctheory of cosmic understanding\u201d in which Ram and Sita are the all-knowing, playing roles for the benefit of mankind. But Paley depicts Ram turning away from his wife in bed, walking all over her, and kicking her out of his life into a chariot which Lakshmana drives into the forest.<\/p>\n

\"Ram<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Ram (literally) walking over his pregnant wife right before he banishes her to the forest<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

The film intersperses the story of the Ramayana with bits of Paley\u2019s own life \u2013 it\u2019s like two parallel tracks. While the modern day Paley story is in a sort of pulsating animation, for the Ramayana thread, she interestingly makes use of a variety of imagery \u2013 there\u2019s the Betty Boop-style animation, the Islamic painting style animation, where Sita seems almost like NoorJahan<\/a>, and the deity-style animation where Ram is the kinds you see on the God-Goddess calendars. At times, I felt that that the mix of different styles was a bit much, and the interpretive figures awkward, but for the most part this was an interesting film. A bit of a(n) (acid) trip, but interesting anyway.<\/p>\n

This film can be watched in it’s entirety, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sita sings the blues is quite unlike anything I\u2019ve seen before. First off it\u2019s an animated film for adults, based on Indian mythology, and is a feminist take on Sita\u2019s predicament. It also mixes the mythology with a modern day … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":"","facebook_10233691416821117_190635594420624":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[92,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animation","category-recommended"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":5,"uagb_excerpt":"Sita sings the blues is quite unlike anything I\u2019ve seen before. First off it\u2019s an animated film for adults, based on Indian mythology, and is a feminist take on Sita\u2019s predicament. It also mixes the mythology with a modern day … Continue reading →","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45CAb-9P","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1286,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions\/1286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}