Sita Sings the Blues
About Sita Sings the Blues
Nina Paley cuts the Ramayana to Sita's side of it. Rama is exiled, Sita goes with him, Ravana takes her after the golden deer draws Rama off, and Hanuman's army brings her back. She passes through fire to answer the gossip, bears Lava and Kusha, and is sent away again. She asks the earth to take her. Between those scenes, three shadow-puppet narrators argue the story, and Sita sings in the recorded voice of Annette Hanshaw. A parallel strand follows Paley from San Francisco to Trivandrum after her husband takes a job there, then the email that ends the marriage while she is in New York.
Cast & crew
More about Sita Sings the Blues
Paley wrote, directed, produced, and animated it, mostly alone, in Flash. Jake Friedman worked on the Battle of Lanka. She later put the labor at 9,360 hours. The Berlin International Film Festival showed it on 11 February 2008. In early 2009 she borrowed to pay $50,000 for the Hanshaw recordings after a first demand of $220,000. GKIDS handled theaters east of the Mississippi and Shadow Distribution the west. A DVD run was held to 4,999 copies.
Themes
Background
Finished as a one-person Flash feature and first shown at Berlin in February 2008, then caught by the cost of 1920s recordings.
Making
Paley animated the feature herself. The Hanshaw tracks, which she had taken for public domain, were still under state protection, and the license bill arrived after the film was finished.
Audiences
Montreal's Festival du nouveau cinéma gave it the audience Grand Prix in October 2008. Other audience prizes followed at Begles and several American festivals.
Technique
Drawn in Flash as a feature, with the Hanshaw numbers played against vector animation.
Music
Sita's songs are Annette Hanshaw recordings from the late 1920s, including "Mean to Me" and "Am I Blue?" Paley paid $50,000 in 2009 to clear them.
Preservation
Paley released downloadable files, including HD, in March 2009. On 18 January 2013 she placed the film under CC0.
Notes
- The shadow narrators are Aseem Chhabra, Bhavana Nagulapally, and Manish Acharya.
- Debargo Sanyal speaks Rama. Reena Shah speaks Sita. Hanshaw's records are the singing voice.
- Sanjiv Jhaveri plays Dave and also Dasharatha, Ravana, the dhobi, and Valmiki.
- On 18 January 2013 Paley moved the license from CC BY-SA to CC0.
- A 23-track album came out digitally in 2009. Other music is by Todd Michaelsen, Masaladosa, Rohan, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Nik Phelps, and Pierre-Jean Duffour.
- Reported receipts from March 2009 to March 2010 were $132,000, counting more than ticket sales.
Awards
- Crystal Bear, special mention, Berlinale 2008
- Annecy Cristal for best feature, 2008
Scenes
- The shadow puppets stop the epic to argue a detail.
- Sita sings a Hanshaw chorus after the fire ordeal.
- The breakup arrives as an email in New York.
Influenced by
- Ramayana
Also available
- Internet Archive (Sita_Sings_the_Blues)
