Sita Sings the Blues

[eredien]

I think that the film "Sita Sings the Blues," an animated version of the Ramayana with musical interludes from a 1920's singer Annette Hanshaw as well as meta-commentary from 3 of the director's Indian friends, and will be important. Nina Paley, a Guggenheim winner, made it herself in 5 years, after her husband traveled to India for a "temporary" job and then divorced her. The film is also about her breakup with her husband. It's being billed as "the greatest break-up story ever told."

I want to bring it to the Brattle. I have already contacted them and said that I will be happy to personally help them bring it to the theatre. Please feel free to contact them yourself and ask.
If that's not possible, or maybe even if it is, I will be traveling to New York City, or possibly Vermont, on the bus to see it for myself.

Ebert's review

This is the trailer.

This is the trailer with the meta-commentary on the nature of story.

Please please come with me to see it, or buy a shirt, or do anything you can to help this film. If you love art or criticism or singing or thinking or epic or commentary or story, you will probably want to see this film.

Now off to the Somerville Theater.
This is some of the embedded singing.

Comments

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I'd heard of this a while back, and had it pop up again when a friend read Ebert's review of it and flipped me a link. Paley's art is lovely; she can draw her ass off, and her writing is pretty sharp. If you can make this show up at the Brattle I will love you forever a while!

[greylander.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I'm pretty tired of being treated as a cipher for white women's issues with their sexuality.

http://zooeylive.blogspot.com/2006/12/of-cultural-appropriation-and-white.html

[capsicumanuum.livejournal.com]

I swear to you, I did not look at this comment before I posted mine.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

This happens on a regular basis?

Admittedly I am biased towards Paley, what with being a middle-class white transwoman who dropped out of the animation industry around the same time Paley started her solitary quest to animate this, loves 20s animation, and has found Paley's comics to be pretty reliably entertaining in the past. Part of the film seems to be about commenting on her appropriation of the narrative, which is more than the average big budget myth-copyrighting animated feature does.

[greylander.livejournal.com]

This happens on a regular basis?

Mostly on days ending in 'y'.

[capsicumanuum.livejournal.com]

I won't be seeing it, and this (http://zooeylive.blogspot.com/2006/12/of-cultural-appropriation-and-white.html) is a good explanation of why. There are so many many many good, important, moving, fantastic interpretations of the Ramayana, that I don't see any need to support one whose ethics I find questionable.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

So Prospero’s emotions were not about a colonialist’s anxiety of establishing imperial control, but became representative of some kind of metaphysical quest for knowledge.

Um, this statement in the entry you linked to pinged my personal lunatic-detector-- and I thought Paley's reply, which is the first comment on said entry, was both gracious and reasoned.

[eredien]

I think the criticism of her not directly acknoweldging all of her sources is probably spot-on; I would like to see her response to the author who wrote the "Sitayana," Mallika Sengupta.

[capsicumanuum.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, focus on one sentence in an entire criticism, without actually engaging in what was obviously the main point of my (and, I might add, greylander's) objection. Frankly, that kind of response pings my "White lady doesn't give a shit about the concerns of brown women" detector.

[eredien]

Hey, Rush--can you engage with the whole of Zoeylander's work, not just the bit about Prospero? And, if you also disagree with the bit about Prospero that zoeylander posted, can you explain why?

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I've been wanting to see this too; I don't know whether the Brattle is actually legally allowed to show it given the copyright issues, or whether those have simply blocked the distribution. (Apparently Hanshaw's estate, which is claimed by multiple people, insist on a licensing fee which is effectively high enough to prevent anyone from ever using the music again. Sigh.)

However, I will support whatever efforts you make on this film's behalf, and I will also come with you if you end up having to make a trip, if logistically possible.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Getting it into the Brattle may be easier if Paley manages to get her revised distribution plan to work.