Humaira Grant
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Quiet Muffin
This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.
shricool51
if you really wanna know this story about Ramayan then you should watch (1992) Movie "Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0259534/this movie is nothing but garbage. shamefully western people people picks Hindu religious stories and Most respected people and make comedy movies to degrade them. i don't understand are they testing hindu peoples tolerance? you are doing all this because no hindu shoots you in your head for insulting his religion just like muslims, well that day will come soon when hindu people will lose their patience and attack those who insulting hinduism just like muslims. i think thats why you people doing this so later you can declare hindus terrorist too. why don't you make fun of Jesus? you know what make movie like this of Prophet Muhammad i dare you.
The_Film_Cricket
Nina Paley spent four years making the film on her own computer, and is credited the film's director, writer, producer, editor and animator. The result of her labor is a strange, confounding, colorful, daffy and sometimes hilarious imagining of the legendary Indian folk tale of "The Ramayana." In it, Ramayana (referred in this film simply as "Rama") is a blue-skinned Indian prince who dumps his wife when he suspects that she committed adultery while she was in the clutches of the creature who kidnapped her. The story is narrated by three wisecracking shadow puppets who discuss the story in an effort to orient themselves – and us – on the progress of a story that is probably far more complicated than it needs to be. Meanwhile, in another parallel story, Paley tells her own autobiographical journey of how her husband dumped her and left her with a broken heart that ultimately resulted in her creating Sita Sings the Blues. The main story, though, involves Rama being forced into exile by his father, at the request of his wicked stepmother who wastes no tears on her blue-skinned stepson. She tells him – with an Indian accent – "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out." Rama is married to the beautiful Sita, and asks her not to join him in his exile, but Sita is determined that a woman's place is next to her husband. She sings the rapturous joy of being with Rama through Hanshaw's evocative jazzy tune "Here We Are" as the two lovers spent time playing hide and seek. Her joy isn't even deterred when Rama kills a group of blue demons who come out of the woods to do harm to the couple. It is the songs that evoke the most magical moments of Sita Sings the Blues. Sita (pronounced "See-tah"), who looks like a Middle Eastern version of Betty Boop, sings Hanshaw's songs with a sexy, laid-back style and always punctuates the numbers with a happy "That's all" (which was Hanshaw's trademark). All of the songs speak to the situation at hand, and every time Sita opens her mouth to sing, it brings a smile to our faces. Even when she's sad, the film's visuals still evoke a jolly tone. Paley allows the film's visual palette to compliment what is happening to Sita during these musical interludes: When she sings "Am I Blue?" she literally turns blue. When she sings "Lover Come Back to Me", it is accompanied by repeated scenes of her lover dropping her. Sita maintains her loyalty to Rama, but trouble is afoot when an evil ten-headed king named Ravana is informed by his sister Surphanaka (sporting a nasty set of fangs) that Rama has killed his prized flock of blue demons, so he plots to get revenge by kidnapping Sita. Spurring Ravana on to the idea of a kidnapping, Surphanaka describes Sita this way: "She is the most beautiful woman in the world. Her skin is fair like the lotus blossom. Her eyes are like lotus pools. Her hands are like… from… lotuses. Her breasts like… BIG… ROUND… FIRM… JUICY… LOTUSES." Ravana asks his underling to transform himself into a golden deer to distract Rama while he kidnaps Sita. Blissfully unaware of the kidnapping plot, Sita is snatched right out of her house while in the midst of singing of her devotion to Rama with "What Wouldn't I Do for that Man", a song that eventually proves prophetic. Anguished over the disappearance of his beloved Sita, Rama plots to rescue her with the help of the monkey warrior Hanuman who – if I understood correctly – was apparently created by the gods just for that purpose. Sita, meanwhile receives a threat from Ravana that if she doesn't agree to marry him, that his blue demons will cut her to ribbons. Hanuman shows up to rescue Sita while she mournfully sings "Daddy Won't You Please Come Home." It is during this number (which includes Sita's own claranet solo) that Hanuman proves to be an adept warrior as one of the blue demons sets his tail on fire and he, in turn, uses it set fire to Ravana's palace. He leaves Ravana's island and returns to tell Rama the whole story. Why Hanuman didn't just take Sita back with him is a question that the narrators debate. Rama and Hanuman amass a giant army of monkey warriors to return to Ravana's island and rescue Sita. The plan goes into effect as Sita happily sings "Who's That Knocking at My Door?" The blue demons are dispatched with ease and the ten-headed Ravana is decapitated over and over and over again. Sita is delighted to have her beloved come and rescue her, however he is thoughtless, suspicious and jealous. Rama tells her "You have lived in another man's house so you are unfit to be my wife. He cannot have kept you in his house for so long without touching you". Seeing Sita as damaged goods and cuts her loose. Sita is broken-hearted and sings of her sadness with the melancholy tune "Mean to Me". Sita Sings the Blues represents all the reasons that I love the movies. It is lively and fun, it tells a great story that is equal parts comedy, drama, romance, heartbreak, adventure, comeuppance, revenge, all mixed into a musical that is bouncy and fun. It tells a story that is universal in a way that we've never seen before, using various techniques and camera tricks to tickle us and treat us and allow us regard it with wonder. I like this movie a lot.
Ana P.
This actually made me pretty uncomfortable. I can tell a lot of time and energy was put into making it. But, I think it is actually a shame this is getting so much attention. I felt like the story was basically about a woman that visits India, has a bad experience in her personal life, and then decides rather arbitrarily to try and relate that to Hindu religion. Except, the connection is not as strong as she would imply-- to the point that she is literally misrepresenting Hindu religion to the Western world. I guess it's sort of like... if someone was suggesting Christianity is a religion about baby killing because of that one Bible story about Saul, except even worse, because this utilizes an uncommon *interpretation* of a *disputed/controversial* text (that some people even believe was written with malicious intent).The issue is, not everyone even interprets the texts she is referencing like the film presents. In fact, I am genuinely sad if this is someone's first introduction to these deities, because this is not a very common interpretation of this religious text. For example, a belief I have heard often is that Rama truly loves Sita, and he drives her to give oath by fire not because he himself ever even doubts her fidelity, but because he wants her name to be cleared and that she will be respected and accepted as queen.For those that *accept the legitimacy of*, and even like, the controversial "last chapter" represented in this film (which contains stylistic and other differences from the rest of the text and some believe was written at a different date by a different author, possibly even with ill intentions!), where he ultimately leaves her at the ashram with the sages... generally, they liked it because the idea was more that Rama had to make a choice between the duty of a king and his own personal happiness, and ultimately gave up even what he loved most in the world - being with his true love - for duty. So, in other portrayals taken from the same text, it might be that he leaves her outside the ashram, where the sages live, but he is shown sobbing and considering death, and he is clearly devastated when he sees he cannot be with her. The context is supposed to be there, that those deities are actually soul mates. The idea that he was throwing her away because he doubted her, and continued to doubt her fidelity, is actually not what everyone necessarily even believes! (It is best to just ask people how they felt and why!) In this way, I feel it's spreading misinformation about Hindu religion, and was not very considerate. Yes, there are ethical issues which could be discussed respectfully, but, this wasn't quite on the mark. I felt so bad for Ms. Paley about her husband. But, this husband that left her, obviously, was just a man, and not God. And he was not having to make any hard choices.So the comparison was weak and really was not done in the best taste, either. Unfortunately, I don't think this movie was a particularly academic, particularly helpful, nor particularly respectful handling of the subject matter. It just seems more about unrelated personal feelings than anything else. The animation was lovely, though, and personally I also liked the very end because I liked the idea he would serve her and try to comfort her after such a hard life. Also, I could feel so much pain and passion in this work, and really liked a few scenes. Though overall, I'm afraid it might be seen as hurtful. I'm really sorry about this awful husband, Ms. Paley! However, I think people perhaps should just take with a grain of salt the idea that her husband was like Lord Rama; as per my own reading and discussions with others, I expect not everyone is going to agree with that.
Charles Herold (cherold)
This wonderfully ambitious and ingenious cartoon is full of interesting ideas and various animation styles. But it never fully clicked with me, and I'm afraid it's because it's a too too ambitious and ingenious. The movie tells parallel stories, one an ancient Indian legend of Rama and his wife Sita, the other of the animator's relationship. The latter is very simple, a series of short scenes down in a scrawled style of animation. But Sita's story is another thing entirely. The story is narrated by three Indian friends of the animator who tell the story from memory, often disagreeing about what happened and editorializing over the story. The are very entertaining, and animated with traditional Indian art.The stories they describe are then illustrated in a different animated style that is the least memorable of the movie (although not bad).Then the most significant part of the story is recounted, using a beautiful, lush style of animation, through the use of a song. The songs are sung by some old-time torch singer and are very good.There are also a couple of times when the animation does some weird psychedelic stuff, which didn't seem to match anything else in the movie.While the exploration of whether men deserve the sort of unconditional love is interesting, and much of this is amusing, there is a certain unsettled quality to it. It is as though the director had a lot of ideas and wanted to do them all right now in case she never got together the money to do another movie. I'm not saying what she did was wrong, and I certainly understand why some people really love this movie, but for me it was just not as good as the movie I was expecting based on the opening sequence.
