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| I've been going to see a stack of movies at MIFF, and I thought I'd give you some film reviews. In some cases to alert you to some good stuff, in others to warn you to run away. Film festivals are like that - you take your chances on the unknown, and sometimes you get burned. Goes with the territory. |
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First up is a great film I saw last night. It is called Sita Sings the Blues.
The film is an animated re-telling of the Indian Ramayana myth, made by an indie New York film-maker called Nina Paley. Given the limitations she faced (i.e.no money) the end product is just stunning. An incredibly colourful animated film, lots of jokes, intriguing mix of animation styles and great music - both US blues and contemporary Indian.
This picture will give you an idea of the animation style.
There are more here.
Sita's not a straightforward re-telling of Ramayana. There are basically three threads to it: the telling of the story itself, including Sita singing various blues numbers as events unfurl, a parallel story of two modern-day lovers undergoing separation and abandonment similar to that described in the Ramayana, and a narration by three shadow puppets (actually three Indians recorded while trying to remember details of the story). The latter scenes are hilarious.
Each thread of the story has its own animation style, ranging from loose pen-and-ink drawings for the modern story through to Murghal style art for the traditional parts. Despite the stylistic differences, it all seems to hang together really well.
The music is mostly 1920s blues music sung by little-known American singer Annette Harnshaw. This is allied to some thumping Indian contemporary songs from the likes of Masala Dosa, that really get the audience revved up. This is an eclectic but very apt soundtrack for the story.
The film won't be every Indian's cup of tea. It's essential a Western woman's look at the Ramayana, filtered through her own life experience of being spurned by her lover (and therefore leading her to empathise with Sita far more than Rama). This was a bit controversial at the viewing, and Nina Paley readily acknowledged that it would be even more controversial in India itself. Sadly that means she will probably never get it past the Indian censors, and it may never be shown there.
Complicating that is the fact that the film was made for virtually no money, and Paley does not have the funds to get a distributor to pick the film up. Since she does not own the song rights, she also can't release a DVD of it, or a CD of the soundtrack. So this is a very rare jewel indeed - hard to get to see. If you Google it, you may find archival pieces of it at Sepiamutiny or other places, but I don't think there's anywhere you can find the whole film online. Paley was pretty frank that the only real way for it to be widely distributed was via piracy. She actually is not averse to that - she wants the film to be seen, and has said so on her blog.
I really don't know how you might get to see this film, but do try if you can. It is stunning to look at, great to listen to, sad and funny, with an upbeat ending. |
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