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Nina PaleySita Sings the Blues (2008)

Sita is a goddess separated from her beloved Lord and husband Rama. Nina is an animator whose husband moves to India, then dumps her by email. Three hilarious shadow puppets narrate both ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the Indian epic Ramayana. Set to the 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, Sita Sings the Blues earns its tagline as "the Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told."


This movie is part of the collection: Feature Films

Producer: Nina Paley
Audio/Visual: sound, color

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Reviewer: xXDarkRoseXx - - November 22, 2009
Subject: Beautiful
Absolutely beautiful animation, music, and a wonderful story. I hope to see more from Nina in the future.

Reviewer: famille ricor�e - - November 12, 2009
Subject: Magnifique
Nothing else...

Reviewer: NoiseCollector - - October 23, 2009
Subject: This was enjoyable
Reminded me of a trey parker/ ian gilliam collaboration and I imagine no riots will be started over it.

Hmmmm...

Reviewer: poisynth - - September 19, 2009
Subject: Talk about inspiration
This movie and your story is fascinating! Thanks for sharing :)

Reviewer: Dark Moon - - August 25, 2009
Subject: Between the lines?
Whenever I view anything creative that tells a story, whether it be literature or a video, I tend to read between the lines in an attempt to get a glimpse of the author. I've seen few videos to encourage that more than 'Sita Sings the Blues'.

In the video, Nina tells the story (presumably her own) of Nina and Dave, two happily married graphic artists. He suddenly (and unilaterally, without discussion) decides to take a job in India, and eventually dumps her without ever telling her why. By the end of the video, we see Nina in possession of a small library of Hindu literature, reading the Ramayana.

Reading between the lines, it would appear that Nina began to investigate Hindu culture in quest of understanding what drew Dave away from her and broke her marriage, and found a parallel to her own story in the Ramayana. In her satiric and highly personalized (as 'onlysekhar' aptly points out) retelling of the classic, Nina makes it clear what the parallel is that she perceives: Men are fickle, faithless, self-righteous misogynists who will victimize and shatter the heart of any woman so foolish as to allow one so far into her heart that she becomes vulnerable. If there could possibly be a greater heel in India than Dave, it would have to be Rama (except that Nina's Rama at least has the grace to cry when Sita leaves the mortal plane).

I don't suppose that we'll ever hear Dave's story. I can't help but wonder how this video may impact his life, as I'm sure it will reach him (if it hasn't done so already) and, more to the point, his associates. The license under which Nina released it certainly won't hurt in terms of speeding it upon its way. Somehow I can't imagine that grief alone accounts for the amount of effort she put into telling her story in so public and appealing a way.

A final note about the animation: Several objects in the video, such as the phonograph on which the celestial Sita plays Annette Hanshaw's recordings, have eyes. These eyes, along with the eyes of all the characters, constantly blink. I found myself totally conscious of my own blink reflex during the entire video, which was annoying and distracting.

And, in the words of Annette Hanshaw, "that's all."

Reviewer: indianwomanhidamba - - August 19, 2009
Subject: Sitasingtheblues
Nina paley is a great artist. Great fusion. Thanks for exposing sexism in the religion while craeting a masterpiece. THE movie of the century and beyond.

Reviewer: wandaanastasia - - August 14, 2009
Subject: Sita Sings the Blues
I found the artwork beautiful, the music nostalgic and knowing/learning the lesson of being true to oneself above all. I also found it very interesting that christianity doesn't hold the monopoly over other religions when it comes to "contradictions within itself".

Reviewer: Eight Bit Bandit - - July 27, 2009
Subject: It was great
I really enjoyed that. The animation was wonderful, and the cultural allusions (both traditional and from the Twenties) were beautifully displayed and seamlessly integrated.

Reviewer: onlysekhar - - July 24, 2009
Subject: blues of civility
It seems simplistic association of self with role-model personalities and abusing the epics with brazen mockery is the order of the day!!

Reviewer: 北方之北 - - July 22, 2009
Subject: 有意思
刚看了一个开头，对印度的文化很感兴趣，想学梵文，有达人可赐教否？

Reviewer: paolocchio - - July 1, 2009
Subject: disc images subtitles
Thanks for the uploading.
Can you tell me if the disc images have subtitles? I live in Italy.
Thanks in advance.

Reviewer: jayessell - - June 20, 2009
Subject: I liked the musical sequences...
They remind me of Betty Boop!

Reviewer: PAJA63 - - June 19, 2009
Subject: Lovely story with intelligent humour
This is a both beautiful and hilarious rendering of a legendary tale. It manages to makes something new out of it, does it with great style and finesse (this 2D "cut-out" computer animation blends well with classic Indian shadow-puppets).

Irony abound where appropriate, both in the story itself as in the telling of Nina's own auto-biographic (?) side-story. This modern-life sequence is highly entertaining. The choice of using the "boiling" line technique is a great choice. This style plus the cat are obvious borrowings from Canadian animator Richard "the Snit" Condie, aren't they, Nina? ;-) But it's a risk-taking, as some viewers (and reviewers) obviously haven't seen his productions...

Reviewer: wytchcroft - - June 18, 2009
Subject: sita sings the blues
This film is just great, it's a clever mix of charming animation, old time music and a modern live action story too.

Everyone will have their favourite sections but for me it was just a joy from start to finish.

I've recommended the film to many others and had a very positive response.

Reviewer: velobill - - June 7, 2009
Subject: Missed at Danbury
I missed seeing "Sita" at the CT Film Festival. Actually I got to see a few moments of the beginning and felt terrible I couldn't stay. Thanks for posting it. I loved it.

Reviewer: saurabhsavyasachi - - May 31, 2009
Subject: loved it!
Amazing work Nina.. Cant wait to see it on the big screen now.. really loved it!

Reviewer: taromaru - - May 18, 2009
Subject: Thank you Nina!
This movie is one of the most funny and viewtiful pieces of animation i've ever seen, and I have seen quite a lot of them.

As if that wasnt enough, Nina has decided to release it under a permisive CC license, turning into an example to follow by many less skilled and talented artists.

I just would like to show how thankful I am for being able to find, share and download this movie I love.

I am looking forward to the DVD on my favourite store :)

Download, share and watch it, alone or with friends!

PS: Following Nina since her "Lexi the cat" short. It was great to see her again!

Reviewer: krystalsmeagol2 - - May 16, 2009
Subject: i do like this
huge into goddess worship

Reviewer: tboogie - - April 20, 2009
Subject: Just a good piece of work
This is a good piece of work. Too cool for school if you will. Clever, witty, and most importantly, a story that needs to be told visually... and it is done so very well with the incoporation of Eastern and Western philospohies.

If you don't watch but one Archive film this year, make it this one.

Reviewer: aratbag - - April 17, 2009
Subject: interesting, but...
A clever melding of 78 jazz and the Indian sagas.
That is entertaining and for those not acquainted the story is explained most light heartedly by shadow puppets - but in a different cartoon style.
The modern sequence is the major let down. Another cartoon style - wobbly line cartoons are not artistic, just badly done and v. annoying.

Three individual good ideas(or potentially)that don't knit for me

Reviewer: 893 Productions - - April 15, 2009
Subject: 5 *'s
innovative, interesting, entertaining

Reviewer: jonc - - April 12, 2009
Subject: This is a classic
Stunning. Funny, sad, beautiful animation and just brilliant. Nina Paley creates a saga about finding closure in a relationship and I suspect makes a personal statement as well. Her decision to distribute this for free adds to the beauty of it.

Reviewer: nickleus - - April 8, 2009
Subject: very creative
i love it. great animation and style =)

Reviewer: babysprite - - April 4, 2009
Subject: this. is. fabulous.
It is one of THE BEST animated features I've ever seen, on multiple levels and in multiple dimensions. It is genius. If I were to meet Nina Paley in person, I'd shake her hand, look her eye to eye and thank her for sharing this with us. It is a treasure.

Reviewer: einfeldt - - March 23, 2009
Subject: Beautifully layered, very original
Nina Paley has created a very original story, connecting a 2,000 year-old Indian myth to a 1920s blues singer, and then connecting them both to her highly personal yet timeless struggle with abandonment and unrequited love. The graphics are splendid and her time is nearly flawless. It's amazing that she persuades the audience to care about the fate of a 2,000 mythical character, Sita, the wife of Rama.

Her use of shadow puppets brings levity to a very dark story. The shadow puppets inform us of Indian mythology in an engaging, witty, and current dialog that keeps the story moving along while connecting Nina's personal story of unrequited love to that of Sita and 1920's blues singer Annette Hanshaw.

There are lots of remixes out there today, but this remix of a classic Indian story shows how great and how very original a remix can be. Nina Paley sets the bar high for Free Culture remixes with "Sita Sings the Blues".

Reviewer: cainmark - - March 8, 2009
Subject: Nina Paley's movie needs the music to be out of copyright jail.
I knew this would be a special movie years ago when Nina Paley first started sharing some of her designs and works from this movie on the web.

I've been downloading clips, images, notes and sharing them with everyone I know so that they would by the DVD when it was eventually out of copyright jail. I wanted to help others see this fantastic animator's work because I felt it was important for several reasons:

Cultural, historical, animation techniques (she started with Macromedia Flash, which was bought by Adobe), business of art (she did the design and animation herself, with help with the sound), and the fantastic Creative Commons licensing schema that Larry Lessig helped develop so artists could have more control over their own works.

And now seeing it all put together I am blown away at how fantastic the whole film is.

Hopefull the music publishers will realize the songs used should have been _completely_ n the public domain so future artist can make transformative works that add to our future culture.

Watch the movie and be amazed. I was.

Reviewer: earther - - March 8, 2009
Subject: even better than I had expected
I've been following this movie for a years now, ever since Nina Paley posted a few of the wonderfully, exuberant musical numbers online. Seeing the entire story assembled is just amazing. It is a fantastic retelling of an ancient tale of Sita and Rama. Like many ancient tales, it can now be read in many ways, and in this charming rendition it retains its full sense of tragedy leavened by whimsy.

This animated telling of the Ramayan borrows from Mughal artistic tradition, Indonesian shadow plays, modern animation techniques and magnificent musical numbers in Ms. Paley's unique style. It respects the traditions, but offers a modern take on the tale. I'm just sort of babbling here. It is absolutely incredible. See for yourself.

Reviewer: drakar2007 - - March 7, 2009
Subject: excellent!
thanks for all the excellent-quality uploads.

BTW: how do you get archive.org to allow you to upload multiple videos to one page, and also stop making renderings / streaming? I'm trying to post a few of my own remuxes but it seems to want me to create a new identifier each time.

Segments

Source Flash Authoring Files can be found here:
http://www.archive.org/details/Sita_Sings_the_Blues_Files