HMB’s Coastside Film Society: Sita Sings the Blues
April 8, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. — Sita Sings the Blues
“It hardly ever happens this way. I get a DVD in the mail. I’m told it’s an animated film directed by ‘a girl from Urbana.’ That’s my hometown. … I know nothing about it, and the plot description on IMDb is not exactly a barn-burner: An animated version of the epic Indian tale of Ramayana set to the 1920s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw. Uh, huh. I carefully file it with other movies I will watch when they introduce the 8-day week.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.
The film Ebert put aside is a modern retelling of the life of a beauty named who was shunned by her husband, King Rama, because he thought she had done him wrong. The story is a key component of one of the great epic tales of the Hindu religion.
Four thousand years later, a young animator in San Francisco named Nina Paley finds herself in a similar stew when her husband leaves her to take a job in India. Distraught, Paley follows him and, like Sita, finds herself unwelcome and alone in an unfamiliar land. The parallels between her life and that of the legendary goddess of Indian mythology are just too much. Paley works out her grief by animating Sita’s life story, and her own, as a Busby Berkeley-style animated musical.
Ebert became intrigued when an old friend recommended the film. “I put on the DVD and start watching. I am enchanted. I am swept away. I am smiling from one end of the film to the other. It is astonishingly original. It brings together four entirely separate elements and combines them into a great whimsical chord. … To get any film made is a miracle. To conceive of a film like this is a greater miracle.”
Don’t make the mistake Ebert almost did. Come see the miracle! It boasts battle scenes that put modern anime to shame, a mixed Indian and classical American jazz soundtrack that will thrill, two heartbreaking tales of love gone wrong, artistic flourishes that put Tiffany to shame, enough humorous asides to keep everyone amazed and amused, and opening credits that will blow you away.
Sita Sings the Blues (82 minutes) is unrated.
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