The Best Ever Indie Movie
And a great story about the evils of the corporate music industry
That movie is the animated Sita Sings the Blues. It is so brilliant, so astoundingly fresh and original, and was made by one person, Nina Paley, who wrote, directed, animated, and produced this delightful gem. Never heard of it? Not your fault.
Back in 2009, I was contacted by someone who correctly guessed that as manager of WorldFusionRadio.com, I’d be interested in the music of Sita Sings the Blues. I was blown away, and not just by the world fusion music of artist Todd Michaelsen . As a professor who was then teaching comparative religion, Paley’s imaginative envisioning of the ancient Hindu story of Rama and Sita is compelling. I screened the movie in my Eastern Philosophy course. The students loved it.
The movie weaves together three stories. One is Paley’s real-life experience of being betrayed and ghosted by her male partner. Her story is told in parallel with the story of Sita, who was betrayed and abandoned by her husband, Rama. Bridging the two stories is an unscripted conversation among three young Indian people as they relate what they remember and think about the Sita and Rama story.
It’s brilliant storytelling, bringing so much humanity and real-life to a mythic story. Paley’s experience and the…
