This isn’t a typical Neterati entry, but the animated feature film I’m writing about has had a particularly vibrant life on the Internet — from its inception as a series of musical sequences a few years ago to its recent completion and availability as a free download (it’s been released under a Creative Commons Share Alike licence, meaning anyone can copy it). The film’s creator, the American cartoonist and animator Nina Paley (http://blog.ninapaley.com/), is keen that it be seen widely in India, but, going by some online discussions I’ve read, a theatrical release could well stir up controversy.
The film is Sita Sings the Blues (http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/), a delightfully imaginative, jazzed-up version of the Ramayana as seen through the eyes of Sita, whose eventual abandonment by Rama is contrasted with Paley’s own estrangement from her husband. Most people I know who have actually seen the film love it, but others have criticised the concept based on synopses that makes it sound like a careless, shallow appropriation of the beloved Indian epic.
Things weren’t helped by Roger Ebert’s ill-advised description, in a laudatory review on his blog (http://tinyurl.com/6tbzfh): “the story of a brave, noble woman who was made to suffer because of the perfidy of a spineless husband and his mother”. Hypersensitive commenters have picked up on this. “This woman, who has made this enchanted film, seems to have concentrated on the betrayal aspect only,” says one, “Is she a feminist? Is she bitter?? She does not take into account the knowledge by Indians that Rama was God-consciousness manifested on earth.”
On Sepia Mutiny (http://tinyurl.com/dm93wj), there’s a lengthy, indepth discussion on “the level of decency required when dealing with somebody else’s culture”. The result of reading all these discussions was that when I finally got around to watching SSTB, I was unprepared for how closely it sticks to the mainstream version of the Ramayana. You have to be hopelessly literalist or thin-skinned (like the blog commenters who object shrilly even when ancient texts are described as “myths”) to be offended by this film.
It begins with a lovely image of Goddess Lakshmi rising out of the eternal ocean, a gramophone player by her side. Three chatty narrators (portrayed as Indonesian shadow puppets, a reminder that a completely different tradition of Ramayana storytelling exists in that country) relate the story of the epic conversationally, fumbling over details, stopping to correct each other. The use of mixed media (including Annette Hanshaw songs from the 1920s) helps liberate the text from a narrow cultural context and gives it universal appeal.
Paley has done her research well and there’s genuine affection on view here, though inevitably the feminine gaze makes Rama seem like a bit of a lout towards the end. (But then, don’t those discussions take place in Indian households too?) During a recent email conversation, she told me that after becoming interested in the Ramayana, she read a number of translations and even watched a few hours’ worth of the clunky TV show directed by Ramanad Sagar — “in fact, I put in a little tribute to Sagar in the scene where Sita keeps rebuffing Ravana’s advances, and the camera keeps zooming in on him dramatically. I call that the Sagar zoom!”
The Creative Commons licence allows SSTB to be broadcast freely in India “by anyone with the balls to do so”, she says, but she’s aware of the possible stumbling blocks to wide distribution. Meanwhile, there’s nothing stopping you from experiencing this wonderful film on your computer screen. Downloads and other viewing options are available at http://tinyurl.com/chqtpl.
