Cartoon Hindi temptress meets 1920s torch songs

[jethrien]

We went over to B's apartment yesterday to test his new video/sound system. We watched The Raid: Redemption, which is about as violent as one might expect, and Sita Sings the Blues, which I totally adored. It's an animated film that's basically got three different intertwined storylines, each in a different style. In one, an American follows her boyfriend to India after he gets a job there. In another, three Indian friends do their best to narrate the plot of The Ramayana, only they can't quite remember all the bits and sometimes are kind of baffled by the characters' actions. In the third, Sita (the love interest of The Ramayana) explains her feelings about the various events by singing love songs from the 1920s. The art is all super-stylized in very different ways. It was unexpectedly charming and I'd highly recommend it.

We also had birthday cake for B. Financier (a bakery) combined chocolate, hazelnuts, and lemon, which was a kind of strange mix but worked surprisingly well.

In other news, my tailbone hates me. (Did I mention this part? I can't remember if I mentioned this part. Short form, I broke my tailbone back in sixth grade. Totally sucked, healed up fine, never gave me any trouble again. No one mentioned the fact that if you injure your tailbone, it never quite heals properly and while this doesn't matter at all in general, it totally sucks if you get pregnant.) I bought it a donut shaped cushion and everything, and it's still grumbly. It woke me up repeatedly last night to remind me of this.

Comments

[maydove.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry about your tailbone. I hope that there are ways to manage the discomfort.
I saw Sita Sings the Blues a while ago and really liked it, especially the part with the anguished dance after the boyfriend breaks up with the woman (hope I'm remembering that right...)

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Close enough.

[dushai.livejournal.com]

Since I have some interest in copyright, I had heard of Sita Sings The Blues and Paley's grand experiment and struggle to get it made. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm interested. Any further commentary about the film itself?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I can comment, if jethrien doesn't get around to it! I was totally transfixed by Sita, and I watched the interview with the creator on the DVD. (It made it to DVD! Woo hoo! Respectable medium! Apparently!)

The film itself is extremely personal to the writer-director-animator, even though two-thirds of it concern the plot of The Ramayana. The story of Sita's relationship with Rama is run in parallel with that of Paley and her husband. Both deal with separations, with Sita's, from a holy book that is supposedly instructional for men and women, showing both Sita and Rama being faithful to and missing each other, whereas Paley and her husband, understandably, start to drift apart when he takes a job in India and she stays behind in the USA. The idealized story, for all its tragedy (Sita is sent away because Rama listens to people who say she strayed while she was kidnapped), is actually a grand, almost romantic drama, with all parties having learned about or proved themselves. The real story (fictionalized, but based on truth) is truly devastating even though, unlike in The Ramayana no huge, earth-shattering tragedies occur. The every-day upsets are actually a lot more powerful. You'll ache for Paley's animated avatar (and her kitty!).

You'll also wind up humming a lot of the tunes sung by Annette Hanshaw. In one of the intertwining animation segments, Sita does actually sing the blues, borrowing the pipes (and recordings) of a 1920s chanteuse whose voice is sweet and positively dripping with charm. Though Hanshaw doesn't have the strongest voice, her playfulness and the almost juvenile sort of animation that accompany her songs make for thoroughly delightful musical interludes and work quite well with the story besides. I had to go download as many of Hanshaw's recordings as I could after I saw this movie, and I assume a lot of others did, too. If the people holding the rights could have foreseen that windfall, perhaps they wouldn't have given Paley all the grief in the world about using the songs in the first place.

The good news is that Paley's goof is our good: you can watch Sita online: http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/watch.html

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

What kind of details are you looking for?

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think trinityvixen covered this. :)