Sita Sings the Blues (2008)

Now trust me this movie is one of the greatest movie ever made till date. Amazing style with all that background music and animation. I hated this film but i can't forget its awesomeness.Now the time of insight. This film is a boundary or i should 'no men's land' between un-trust and over-trust. Now 'no men's land' is not defined by anyone and it can have ANY characteristic as we have seen on our earth in various wars because this region is governed by no-one. In similar ways, this film has a characteristic of MOCKING. Laughing on someone is different then mocking someone. A lot of people who knows about Sita will protest for such a film at the same time they are dubious about Sita's authenticity and also at the same time they will worship Sita with their usual rituals. But the point that i find about movie is that the moment it starts mocking a lot of things it looses. Seriousness is crucial for development, even the seriousness in fun but mocking is anti-seriousness.Now anyone who can penetrate India (Bharat) will get enough proof that indeed Ramayan and Sita were real, just like the proof they have that they are breathing oxygen yet unseen by their eyes. At the same time their are folks who call all this epic saga of RAmayan just a work of fiction to preach people at most or to establish themselves. But the moment the movie Sita sings the blues got its way through mocking it lost something that is so important yet very difficult to gain. Sita sings the blues could have been made as a non mocking movie but its not that way and therefore its shamelessness is at peak. Anyone who doesn't understand Ram or Sita will sure enjoy this movie. Anyone who doesn't understand Ramayan will sure hate this movie just to defend their pride.In all such attempts are the examples of freedom of thoughts and speech and at the same time the freedom to be ignorant, careless, money-minded and innocent fools to loose something. I wonder if they have given this same amount of efforts in understanding Ram and Sita they would have got a 100 times more. But God has granted us freedom to do anything and the result is pretty clear in this movie.

First the good parts of the movie were the music sung beautifully and the animation done in a pastiche of styles.The bad parts were the story itself which was a projection of the authors' sense of victimhood onto the story of Rama. Nina and her boyfriend are living in domestic bliss with their cat in San Francisco when he gets a contract in India. Though she misses him greatly he's enjoying his time there and even extends his stay away from her. She leaves her comfortable apartment and cat to follow him to India only to be unceremoniously dumped. Life is a drag.She ends up in a cold apartment in New York reminiscing about the good old days and reading the Ramayana for some reason. Things now become clear to her as the book, rather than being the Story of Rama venerated for millennia, is really the Story of Sita, reflecting the eternal suffering of women at the hands of unfeeling men. Such as perhaps ... the author ??The movie ends with Nina's revenge on India for stealing away her boyfriend by having the Hindu God Vishnu obsequiously massaging the feet of his wife. ha,ha :{This exercise in self pity has certainly been rewarding for the author. For the rest of us however, this type of self centeredness and trivialization of another culture's deeply held beliefs are one of the reasons why Americans are viewed with justifiable suspicion and hostility in the cultural realm.

A very aptly titled movie, Sita sings the blues tells the story of Rama and Sita as found in the Ramayana with some 1920s blues, sung by Annette Hanshaw thrown in. Nina Paley created the film, as director, animator and producer, on her own on her personal computer, quite an achievement given the huge numbers of people and computers who work to create each Pixar or other major movie studio animation.The movie plays out as four distinct animations running concurrently. The story of Rama and Sita is most clearly played out in a Mughal miniature style which is interspersed with the Hanshaw songs. Sung by a 'Betty Boop" looking character, the musical segments are more vibrant and re tell the story visually whilst the song's develop and explain a little of the character's feelings. To explain and narrate the story Paley asked three Indian friends to discuss the Ramayana. Paley didn't give them any time to prepare, so the narrators speak purely from their memories, leading to disagreements over names and other facts, though all agree on the overall themes and tales. When the discussions are taking place the Narrators are represented by three distinct shadow puppets. The final strand to the movie, and the impetus behind the film's creation, shows the disintegration of Paley's real life relationship with her Husband in a grainy modern day New York. There are various parallels with the story of Rama and Sita, such as separation, and these are drawn out through the simultaneous development of the two stories.The songs are wonderful and the movie is a fair introduction to the Ramayana, although not entirely factually correct.

I wonder what Dave is thinking now....,If his goal was to seek immortality,...he chose the right method, and the right spouse to dump. For Nina Paley has made a masterpiece of animation that has it all: clear, beautiful, vibrant, witty,ironic tragic that equates Dave with Rama and herself with Sita. Its bound to be played and remembered for years after Dave is pushing up the daisies. Two parallel stories: Ninas and Sitas interwoven provide us with fabulous entertainment and a cautionary tale , Nina with her revenge, and Dave with a wish he'd been nicer.. WE know the story now..of Sitas abduction, her devotion and Ramas obsession with purity. But its told by a modern woman, so has that feminist edge. Sita is too sweet to rebuke Rama his injustice, so Nina steps in, and when Sitas children sing the praises of Ram, Nina has them tell it like it is.... Such a variety of animation, as if one kind alone couldn't tell her story. Unlike much American animation which has lots of money behind it but little inspiration, this one is refreshingly mature,worthy of its subject, and yet can appeal to children: nothing false, cloying, ..just real feeling...Interestingly, Paley uses simple line drawings making her own story the more cartoonish, as if it was too painful to treat dramatically, and seems to sublimate it into Sitas story.When she learns dave has dumped her, her cry is cartoonish,...cockroaches replace the cat as her companions, as her life crumbles,,,.her life has gone dark, and so its fitting that at Ninas lowest point a dark figure dances amidst the flames.Throughout the beautiful voice of Annette Hanshaw, speaks for Sita, Nina and others dumped and unwanted: whose spouses have been mean to them.