Sita Sings the Blues

Ram, Hanuman and Sita - A still from the film

The Tribeca Film Festival is on in full swing. Last night, AK, H and I watched Sita Sings the Blues, a film by Nina Paley.

The film is, believe it or not, an animated, blues version of the Indian epic tale of Ramayana, this time with Sita as the main character. As an Indian who grew up watching the Ramayana on television depicted with great seriousness and drama, it was refreshing to see this perspective of the Ramayana. It was initially strange and later rather endearing (and cute!) to see Sita singing the Blues and crying over Rama in husky, lovelorn jazz vocals.

Ram, Hanuman and Sita aboard the Pushpaka Vimana

There are several parallel tracks running through the film:

• The actual story of Ramayana (depicted in different art styles which keep changing back and forth) with a focus on Sita. You can see the various styles used in the film here to get an idea of how different each one was! Paley magically weaves ten beautiful blues numbers sung by Annette Hanshaw into the story such that Sita sings them in context!

• Three hilarious Indonesian Shadow Puppets, accompanied by cheerful Indian voices, narrating the story in modern day talk (with some really funny slang thrown in, considering the context still is the Ramayana!)

• Paley’s real-life story in which her husband moves to Kerala in India and dumps her with one simple email. This is when Paley read the Ramayana and drew parallels between the Ramayana and her life and life in general, as we know it today.

Rishis in the forest

The art-work was mind-blowing. I particularly liked the way in which certain things were drawn, like the Rishis and the Vaanar Sena (see all the stills here). There was much detail and the essence of each character and object was captured very beautifully in the animation. The overall look of the film was fantastic; the graphics stunning and the flow between parallel threads excellent. The movie was followed by a Q&A session with Paley and others who worked on the film and Paley mentioned that it took 5 long years to get this show on the road. The long years of hard work comes through in the free flow and effortless transitions within the film.

I really liked the background music throughout the film, especially the fast Indian-Techno numbers which were so Indian and so modern at the same time. Hanshaw’s voice is mesmerizingly beautiful, although I thought they could have reduced the number of Hanshaw numbers that were used in the film.

I really, really enjoyed watching the film. If you have a chance to watch Sita sing the Blues, please do! Watch the trailer here.