At Tribeca: Sita Sings the Blues

Sita Sings the Blues
Dir. Nina Paley
Reviewed by Cullen Gallagher

A singular blending of historiography and Mystery Science Theater-esque commentary, Sita Sings the Blues is an animated feature based on an ancient Indian myth. “Sita,” as history would tell us, was in love with Rama, but while he was out hunting one day, she was kidnapped by Ravana. After one year Rama finally rescues her, but when he discovers she is pregnant he sends her into exile, doubting her fidelity during her captivity. That is history’s version: the on-screen narrators, however, aren’t so easily satisfied with the “damsel in distress” version passed on to them. One narrator suggests that Sita is, in fact, a “blood thirsty woman,” and that the reason she waited for Rama to rescue her was only that she wanted to see him slaughter her captor and his cohorts. Another simply surmises that she distrusted a monkey that had offered to help her.

Director Nina Paley (a NYC-based artist who also teaches at the Parsons School for Design) once again complicates the strictly historical reading of “Sita” by turning the parable into a musical, setting the story to the recordings of Annette Hanshaw, a jazz singer of the 1920s whose voice finds an equal only in the acknowledged greats, such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. This decidedly post-modern approach to history is equally endearing and exhilarating, not merely because the songs are cleverly selected to match the storyline, but because the songs provide invaluable insight. Much like the use of contentious on-screen narrators (who can’t seem to agree on a single interpretation of the story), Hanshaw’s torch songs become an invaluable point of entry to an ancient myth, liberating it from the past and encouraging a modern perspective.

As if to emphasize Sita’s relevancy for modern viewers, Paley interweaves into the narrative a contemporary story of a young woman whose boyfriend moves to India for work (just as Rama left to go hunting). Only instead of waiting behind, this woman packs her bags and moves to India of her own will. The ensuing domestic discontent becomes a counter-point to the original story, and offers a potential answer to the question of, “What does an ancient story like Sita’s have to do with today’s world?” Paley’s charming response confirms that the past can have quite a bit to say about the present.

Thu, May 1 at 1:45PM; Fri, May 2 at 3:00PM.