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Sita Sings the Blues

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Sita Sings the Blues
Poster for Sita Sings the Blues
Directed byNina Paley
Written byNina Paley
Produced byNina Paley
StarringSanjiv Jhaveri
Nina Paley
Deepti Gupta
Debargo Sanyal
Reena Shah
Pooja Kumar
Aladdin Ullah
Narrated byAseem Chhabra
Bhavana Nagulapally
Manish Acharya
Music byAnnette Hanshaw et al.
Release date
February 28, 2009
Running time
82 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$290,000[1]

Sita Sings the Blues is a 2009 animated feature film written, directed, produced and animated entirely by American artist Nina Paley (with the exception of some fight animation by Jake Friedman in the "Battle of Lanka" scene)[2] primarily using 2D computer graphics and Flash Animation.

It intersperses events from the Ramayana, illustrated conversation between Indian shadow puppets, musical interludes voiced with tracks by Annette Hanshaw and scenes from the artist's own life. The ancient mythological and modern biographical plot are parallel tales, sharing numerous themes.

Plot

The Ramayana

The film uses a pared-down adaptation of the legend that retains many of its finer details while orienting itself on a sympathetic perspective towards Sita; in the director's words, the film is "a tale of truth, justice and a woman’s cry for equal treatment."[3].

The plot joins the legend at the exile of prince Rama from his father's court, at the behest of his father's favorite queen, Kaikeyi. Having earned the right to any single favor by saving the king's life, Kaikeyi attempts to secure her own son's inheritance over the eldest and favorite, Rama, by ordering him banished from the court. Sita determines to accompany her beloved husband, although the woods are dangerous and over-run with demons and evil spirits. The demon king Ravana, encouraged by his spiteful ogress sister, hears of Sita's beauty and determines to kidnap her. He sends a golden hind past their dwelling to distract Rama, who tries to impress Sita by hunting the hind into the woods. In his absence, Ravana abducts Sita and demands that she submit to him on pain of death. Sita remains staunchly devoted to Rama and refuses to entertain the idea; Ravana sets a deadline for the ultimatum and Sita waits faithfully for Rama to rescue her.

Aided by the monkey prince Hanuman, Rama eventually discovers Sita's location and brings the monkey army to assist in her rescue. Ravana is slain and Sita restored to her husband, although he expresses serious doubts concerning her fidelity during her confinement. She submits to a trial by fire, a test of her purity; upon throwing herself into the flames, she is immediately rescued by the gods, who all proclaim her devotion and fidelity.

She accompanies Rama back to the palace, and soon falls pregnant. Lingering doubts still play on Rama's mind, however, and after overhearing one of his subjects beating and ejecting an unfaithful consort (claiming he is no Rama to accept and forgive her unfaithfulness), he orders his reluctant brother Lakshman to abandon Sita in the forest. In the company of ascetics she gives birth to her sons and raises them to love and praise their absent father. Years later, Rama overhears their hymns of adoration to their father and locates their dwelling. Distressed and disappointed by her reunion with Rama, Sita prays to the earth to swallow her as final proof of her purity and devotion and the prayer is duly answered, despite the pleas of Rama and Lakshman.

Contemporary parallel

In an episode taken from the director's own life[3], animator Nina Paley starts the film living happily in a San Francisco apartment with her husband and cat. Her husband then accepts the offer of a six-month contract working in Trivandrum, India, and moves there alone to take up the position. After several months of very little contact, he calls to inform his wife that the contract has been extended.

Bewildered by his callous indifference to their separation, Nina sublets their apartment, leaves their beloved cat behind and joins her husband in India. Upon her arrival he appears deeply unenthusiastic to be reunited and demonstrates neither affection nor sexual interest. A while later, Nina flies to a meeting in New York, where she receives a brief e-mail from her husband telling her that their relationship is over. Sad and alone, she stays in New York, finding comfort in a new cat and her study of the Ramayana.

Style and narrative

The film uses several different styles of animation to separate and identify the parallel narratives.

Ravana approaches Sita during her captivity.

Episodes from the Ramayana

Episodes with dialogue from the Ramayana are enacted using painted figures of the characters in profile, which strongly resemble the 18th-century Indian tradition of Rajput painting. The Rajput style of brush painting was principally enacted on manuscripts and commonly employed in the telling of epics such as the Ramayana. In the film they serve as a more traditional style of dramatic narrative, although the dialogue is frequently ironic, inappropriately modern or otherwise humorous.

The background in each scene is usually static and the poses of each character are kept minimal, with movement achieved by simply transporting the character across the screen in its set position. Speech is enacted by alternating the set pose of the face with a slightly liquified version where the jaw is lower.

The shadow puppet narrators discuss Rama's attitude towards Sita after her trial by fire.

Narration and discourse on the Ramayana

Aseem Chhabra, Bhavana Nagulapally, and Manish Acharya provided the voices for three silhouettes, traditional Indian shadow puppets. They link episodes of the Ramayana with a lively, unscripted, discussion of their personal impressions and knowledge of the epic.[4] They provide context and commentary for the story, which has innumerate incarnations and regional variations.[5]

The voices are clearly contemporary and somewhat irreverent, unlike their visualisations, which further establishes the theme of contrast between "ancient tragedy and modern comedy"[6]; Chhaya Natak shadow theatre, for example, was commonly used in retellings of the Ramayana.[7]

During these sections, the ideas and contradictions raised over the course of the puppets' discussions are visualised in animated photographic compositions in the background.

Sita mourns her privation from her husband and his callous behaviour towards her.

Musical episodes from the Ramayana

Episodes set to certain songs performed by jazz singer Annette Hanshaw are visualised, with Sita as the singing performer, using the strikingly modern technique of vector graphic animation.

The slick, bold style – driven by digital animation software – is at odds with the somewhat rustic quality of the old musical recordings but allows close synchronisation with the vocals. The smooth, repetitive, side-scrolling movement it effects assists in suspending the musical episode from the more consistent narrative plot.

On her arrival in India, Nina's husband seems distant.

Contemporary story

The modern, more personal element to the story is narrated using the rough, energetic Squigglevision technique of traditional animation.

It conveys the kind of restlessness inherent in the story and achieves a more light-hearted, universal tone with its simple, highly-stylised renderings of character and environments.

Production

In addition to the central numbers recorded by Hanshaw, music was provided by Rohan, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Nik Phelps, and Todd Michaelsen and Reena Shah of the duo My Pet Dragon. Reena Shah contributed the voice of the Sita character, in addition to choreographing and performing the dance sequences rotoscoped by Paley for the animation.

Controversy

Some conservative Hindus[8] and, according to the film-maker, left-wing academics[9] were offended by the film. In April 2009, a group called the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti started a petition demanding "a complete ban on the movie and initiation of legal action against all those who have been involved in production and marketing of this derogatory act against the entire Hindu community."[10] Nina Paley was surprised by the hostility, saying "I thought it might be a bit controversial, but I wasn’t fully aware of how art and artists are major targets of some right-wing nationalist groups in India. I always imagine an audience of smart, compassionate people I’d enjoy spending time with."[11] Aseem Chabra, who was one of the shadow puppets in the film, said "In the last two decades, the right-wing religious forces in India — Hindu and Muslim — have become very strong, vocal and sometimes violent. But I also know that there are enough sane, balanced, liberal people in India who take art for what it is."[11]

Nina Paley has said that some left-wing academics have also been critical of the film, describing their position as "any white person doing a project like this is by definition racist, and it's an example of more neocolonialism."[9]

The film uses a number of 1920s Annette Hanshaw recordings. Although the filmmaker initially made sure these recordings were not covered by US copyright law [12], a number of other copyright issues surfaced, including state laws prior to US federal copyright law on recordings, rights to the compositions and the right to synchronize the recordings with images. These recordings were protected by state commerce and business laws passed at the time in the absence of applicable Federal laws and were never truly "public domain".[13] In addition, the musical composition itself, including aspects such as the lyrics to the songs, the musical notation, and products derived from using those things, is still under copyright.[14]

Without a distributor, Nina Paley was unable to pay the approximately $220,000 that the copyright holders originally demanded. Eventually, a fee of $50,000 was negotiated. Paley took out a loan to license the music in early 2009.[1]

Unorthodox distribution

Due to terms of the music license, one limited DVD pressing of 4,999 copies will be printed. The film was released for free download starting in early March, 2009 "at all resolutions, including broadcast-quality, HD, and film-quality image sequences", licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-alike 3.0 Unported license.[15] The freely downloaded files will count as "promotional copies" and will thus be exempt from payments to the copyright holders of the songs.[1]

The full film can also be viewed in low-resolution streaming video on the web site for WNET, a PBS member station in New York City. WNET broadcast the film on March 7, 2009.

Nina Paley plans to make money through voluntary payments, ancillary products, sponsorships, the aforementioned limited DVD sales, and possibly other methods.[1]

A cornerstone of the distribution model is the "creator-endorsed" logo, developed by Nina Paley in cooperation with QuestionCopyright.org. Although anyone is free to distribute the film, distributors who do so while giving a part of the profits to the artist can get the artist's endorsement and use the "creator-endorsed" logo on their promotional materials.[16][17]. Exclusive right to distribute 35mm and HDCam prints of the film is split between Gkids[18] for all theaters East of the Mississippi River, and Shadow Distribution[19] for all theaters west of the Mississippi River.

The film can also be rented on Netflix as of March 17, 2010. [20]

Awards

Sita Sings the Blues has won a number of awards.[21]

Influence

In April 2009, the film inspired a Bangkok high fashion line designed by Roj Singhakul, titled "Sita Sings the Blues".[22]

Footnotes and references

  1. ^ a b c d Largely for music, copyright clearance and distribution. Paley, Nina. Sita’s Distribution Plan. December 28, 2008. Accessed on: January 31, 2009.
  2. ^ ,Friedman, Jake. "Animations for Film & TV". JakeFriedman.net. Retrieved 2008-10-14.
  3. ^ a b Director Nina Paley's long synopsis from the press section at SitaSingstheBlues.com, retrieved May 4, 2008
  4. ^ Silhouette animation was also employed in a similar but analogue fashion in the animation Princes et princesses by Michel Ocelot.
  5. ^ Analysis of different variations of the Ramayana from the book Ramayana in the Arts of Asia by Garrett Kam, published by Asia Book, Bangkok in 2000, page retrieved May 4, 2008.
  6. ^ Front page of the official website, SitaSingstheBlues.com
  7. ^ PuppetIndia feature on shadow puppetry, retrieved May 4, 2008.
  8. ^ Sayeed, Vikhar Ahmed. A break-up story. Frontline. May 9, 2009.
  9. ^ a b Di Justo, Patrick.One-Woman Pixar's Animated Film Premieres at Tribeca. Wired. April 25, 2008.
  10. ^ Ekadashi, Chaitra Shuddha. Hindus, Strongly Protest against movie denigrating Devi Sita!. Hindu Janajagruti Samiti. April 5, 2009.
  11. ^ a b Kohn, Eric. A Filmmaker’s ‘Blues’ Prompts Traditionalists To See Red. The Forward. May 29, 2009.
  12. ^ "FAQ page of official film site". Retrieved 2009-03-29.
  13. ^ "Public domain sound recordings".
  14. ^ "Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States". Cornell University. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
  15. ^ From the movie's website.
  16. ^ MacQuarrie, David. Sita sings the copyright blues. CBC. March 17, 2009.
  17. ^ The Creator-Endorsed Mark. QuestionCopyright.org. March 3, 2009.
  18. ^ "Sita Sings the Blues". Retrieved 2009-10-26-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  19. ^ "Sita Sings the Blues". Retrieved 2009-10-26-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  20. ^ http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Sita_Sings_the_Blues/70113539?strackid=779131efbb5f28b9_0_srl&strkid=282005711_0_0&trkid=438381
  21. ^ Awards for Sita Sings the Blues IMDB
  22. ^ Wenin, Samila. Into the Blues. Bangkok Post. April 4, 2009.
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