An animated version of the epic Indian tale of Ramayana set to the 1920s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw.An animated version of the epic Indian tale of Ramayana set to the 1920s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw.An animated version of the epic Indian tale of Ramayana set to the 1920s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw.
- Awards
- 7 wins & 3 nominations
Annette Hanshaw
- Sita (singing)
- (archive sound)
Reena Shah
- Sita
- (voice)
Sanjiv Jhaveri
- Dave
- (voice)
- …
Pooja Kumar
- Surphanaka
- (voice)
Debargo Sanyal
- Rama
- (voice)
Alaudin Ullah
- Mareecha
- (voice)
- (as Aladdin Ullah)
- …
Nitya Vidyasagar
- Luv
- (voice)
- …
Nina Paley
- Nina
- (voice)
Deepti Gupta
- Kaikeyi
- (voice)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThere are two cats in the film - Lexi and Bruno. Lexi is the striped cat that Nina and Dave had in San Francisco. Bruno is the black cat that Nina has in her apartment in New York. According to Nina Paley's Director's Commentary, Bruno does, in fact, sleep in Nina's armpit, as shown at the end of the movie.
- GoofsThe musicians are shown playing with the left and right hands reversed. The clarinet, like all woodwinds, is played with the left hand at the top. The violin is held with the left hand and bowed with the right. But in the movie, the clarinet player has the right hand at the top, and the violin is held with the right and bowed with the left.
- Crazy creditsSita Body Double - Ducky Sherwood Beloved Cult Leader - Mike Caprio Temple Construction Supervisor - Thomas Matthew Swain Kitty Trainer - Ari Kangas Duck Wrangler - Duck Studios Chameleon Handler - Elizabeth Paley
Featured review
Richly subversive
"The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn't know how other people would take it." BB King
The fine recent animations such as Persepolis and Wall-E have set an intelligence standard hard to equal, much less surpass. While Sita Sings the Blues at least equals those in intelligence and wonder, it surpasses them in imagination considering the parallel stories of wives unfairly abandoned by their husbands are set in modern and ancient times, based on the well-know Ramayana story in India.
Although the animation seems a primitive 2-D next to Pixar's successfully realistic product, director and almost everything-else-in-the-picture Nina Paley suffuses the frames with brilliant colors and variable landscapes. Heroine Sita is shaped in circles and curves to make her voluptuous and expressive in an endearingly abstract style.
I have never seen such richly subversive animation that pushes the feminist agenda without offending. The story, after all, is clear about the failure of mankind over the millennia to stop the sexism that puts women through humiliation without retribution. Paley's success at entertaining with a wildly imaginative palette and lovable characters and cats contradicts, however, the generalization that all women suffer degradations centuries old—she is an artist and entrepreneur, who, faced with a restrictive copyright law that doesn't let her market the film because of Jazz singer Annette Hanshaw' 1920's performance (the music is in the public domain, but not the publishing) distributes her film free (find it in 10 installments on YouTube).
Hanshaw's Betty-Boop like singing is the apex of pleasure in this multi layered story, whose intricacy is richly rewarding, sometimes difficult even for Indians to decipher, such as the three Indian voice-overs who wittily try to figure out the details of the Ramayana legend. I rarely make the time to return to a film before I report on it—this time I will happily return to hear Sita sing the blues and put the beautiful mosaic into order.
The fine recent animations such as Persepolis and Wall-E have set an intelligence standard hard to equal, much less surpass. While Sita Sings the Blues at least equals those in intelligence and wonder, it surpasses them in imagination considering the parallel stories of wives unfairly abandoned by their husbands are set in modern and ancient times, based on the well-know Ramayana story in India.
Although the animation seems a primitive 2-D next to Pixar's successfully realistic product, director and almost everything-else-in-the-picture Nina Paley suffuses the frames with brilliant colors and variable landscapes. Heroine Sita is shaped in circles and curves to make her voluptuous and expressive in an endearingly abstract style.
I have never seen such richly subversive animation that pushes the feminist agenda without offending. The story, after all, is clear about the failure of mankind over the millennia to stop the sexism that puts women through humiliation without retribution. Paley's success at entertaining with a wildly imaginative palette and lovable characters and cats contradicts, however, the generalization that all women suffer degradations centuries old—she is an artist and entrepreneur, who, faced with a restrictive copyright law that doesn't let her market the film because of Jazz singer Annette Hanshaw' 1920's performance (the music is in the public domain, but not the publishing) distributes her film free (find it in 10 installments on YouTube).
Hanshaw's Betty-Boop like singing is the apex of pleasure in this multi layered story, whose intricacy is richly rewarding, sometimes difficult even for Indians to decipher, such as the three Indian voice-overs who wittily try to figure out the details of the Ramayana legend. I rarely make the time to return to a film before I report on it—this time I will happily return to hear Sita sing the blues and put the beautiful mosaic into order.
helpful•42
- JohnDeSando
- Apr 14, 2009
- How long is Sita Sings the Blues?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official sites
- Language
- Also known as
- Sita peva bluz
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross worldwide
- $12,619
- Runtime1 hour 22 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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