Sita Sings The Blues

Sita Sings The Blues (Nina Paley, 2008)

Sita Sings The Blues is an 82 minute animated film by Nina Paley, whose animation experience prior to this was apparently a 4 minute short film. Paley is an American woman who became aware of the Ramayana story when she was visiting her husband who was posted on a work assignment in India.

As a white girl, raised in a Western country, my own familiarity with the Ramayana – one of India's great epic tales – is pretty limited. Coming to the story late, and having to rely on mainstream Hindi films and occasional books that make passing reference to the story – I only really know the basics: Ravana, the bad guy with ten heads, kidnapped Sita, the virtuous wife of Rama, the hero of the tale.Rama, with the help of Hanuman, rescued Sita, but doubted her purity having been in Ravana's custody for so long, and he asked her to undergo a trial by fire to prove her innocence. And that's not the end of the story, but that's all I really know. (Obviously it's time for me to read the book).

One of the things that stands out in the story is that Sita seems to get a pretty unfair deal – which is what ultimately prompted Paley to make a film about Sita's plight. Whether or not Sita is a victim actually forms an interesting argument within the film itself – the film's shadow puppet narrators taking sides to argue that she was either instrumental in exacerbating her own problems and did not need to accept ill treatment from Ram; or that “What could she do but exactly what she did? She loved him unconditionally and was fulfilling her duty as his wife.”

With my limited knowledge I obviously can't deconstruct the Ramayana, but it's an issue that comes up in Bollywood viewing frequently too. If you have watched films from any culture outside of your own, there will be times when you notice that the depictions of gender roles are different, cultural and social roles are defined and represented differently, and that isn't always easy to accept if it isn't in line with our own values.

I guess what I am saying is ultimately this: for Paley to decide to make an animated version of the Ramayana, combining varying animation styles: shadow-puppet narrators, a cartoony, Betty Boop-alike Sita, to classical Indian paintings come to life,

all told from Sita's point of view with Sita singing 1920s jazz songs (in place of the Bollywood numbers you might expect), – when you write that down and think about it, it seems pretty gutsy.

It's also awesome. This film is worth watching and talking about and thinking about for SO MANY reasons – there are so many various issues to deconstruct, if that's your thing: the feminist issue, the cultural politics, copyright, history/myth.

Sita Sings The Blues has three distinct narratives running through it. Firstly, there is the present day story of Nina and her husband Dave – based, I can only assume, on the real-life Nina's story. Dave gets placed on a short contract in India while Nina stays in San Francisco. When she finally goes to visit him, it is apparent that something is wrong, and soon after Dave dumps Nina.

Juxtaposed with the story of Dave and Nina is the story of the Ramayana: Ram and Sita. The epic tale is narrated to us by three unconventional shadow-puppet narrators. I say unconventional because of their narration style – they argue points of the story and disagree all the time on aspects of the narrative, are a little unclear on names and dates, stumble with pronunciation, and frequently talk over the top of each other. It's like having the Ramayana told to you by a group of friends who haven't thought about it for a while and might need to go and look some things up. I LOVE this approach and think it's absolutely perfect for a story that has no one authoritative version. These narrators don't claim to be experts but tell the story informally and with good humour, and with enough information to pique the interest of people like me who only know a fraction of the story. 

The approach also allows for various points of view to be presented – as in the “Is Sita a victim or not?” debate. One of the narrators actually compares the situation to when you have a friend who is hung up on a guy who is just not that into her, wouldn't you tell her to move on? While another makes the case for it being unconditional love driving Sita's actions (or inactions) through the epic.

Ahh love. That brings me to the third ''storyline” which is actually cartoony siren Sita, mirroring the storylines of Dave and Nina and Ram and Sita, singing her heart out expressing her emotions – from woman deeply in love “Here We Are”, to heartbroken “Am I Blue”.

The musical numbers, sung by Annette Hanshaw, are largely more Old Hollywood Busby Berkley in their animated execution – unsurprising given the soundtrack is jazz. Even so, given the story, and the format, their execution is often amusingly original!

I've been thinking about the choice of music – how it marries the two stories together – and how to interpret the film as a whole. I think what I took from Sita, singing her blues in a language I can understand – coupled with the juxtaposition of Nina's modern day story and Sita's ancient one - is that love and heartbreak are timeless and borderless. That a present day American woman identified with a woman in a centuries old Indian epic so much she was compelled to tell their stories together: isn't that something?

Sita Sings The Blues is available for free download at sitasingstheblues.com under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License.

When Good Mooches Go Bad

Naseeb (Kirti Kumar, 1998)

Things you need to know:

1. I decided to watch Naseeb because it's “Movember” and a few of us in the Bolly-blogosphere are celebrating this, the GREATEST of months, by watching and writing about films featuring mustaches. GOVINDA SPORTS A MUSTACHE IN NASEEB – and Govinda very RARELY has facial hair in any films.
   
   
   
    You can see why. THIS IS AN OUTRAGE.
   
   
2. I actually was going to kickstart my Movember posts with a completely different film, an epic featuring no less than 5 mustachioed actors in lead roles (and it's not even a Southie film!) until I had a dream about Govinda. Naseeb it is – a film that SIGNIFICANTLY is DEVOID of subtitles.

Here's the thing. When a film has no subs, sometimes it's really easy to tell what is going on. Sometimes, it's as simple as “That's the bad guy, that's the good guy, they're fighting it out in an action sequence, oooh yay uplifting ending” and everyone is happy.

But when the film is not a simple good versus evil action film (why can't all unsubbed movies be that simple?) things get muddy. You need to rely on every little clue you can glean from the onscreen happenings in order to make sense of the narrative when you can only understand every fifth word.

So what we have with Naseeb is twofold: an example of a mustache changing someone's face INEXPLICABLY and UNINTENTIONALLY (I think) towards the sinister and creepy end of the spectrum, and a case where the lack of subtitles meant I really had NO CLUE what was going on.

My impressions of Naseeb (guaranteed to be an incredibly inaccurate and subjective representation of the film) – a real-time-ish blog:

Kader Khan stops a really drunk but obviously rich Govinda from hanging himself – maybe by first trying to reason with him and use logic, and when that fails, calling him “Dost”. This appeals to drunk, moochy faced Chichi, and he drags his new friend back to his opulent mansion, where things get rapidly creepy.

Drunk Moochy Faced Chi Chi insists on feeding Kader Khan – like, force feeding him, in between a lot of touching and kissing. Like, okay, I KNOW that in Hindi films men are more affectionate with each other. But seriously, he was like – feed him a bite of chicken, kiss his face. Feed him some noodles, kiss his face. Feed him some roti, hold him close and kiss him again. 

 You can see there's something...predatory going on.

DRUNK MOOCHY FACED CHI CHI STOP MOLESTING KADER KHAN ALREADY IT'S REALLY CREEPING ME OUT.

So then, creepy awkward dinner finished, Drunk Moochy Faced Chichi is all like “Meri Kareeb Dost (My CLOSE FRIEND) (belated edit way after the fact: this is NOT in fact what he says - see the comments! Yay for helpful commenters!) YOU CAN STAY IN MY ROOM TONIGHT!!” And literally drags (LITERALLY DRAGS) Kader Khan to his bedroom to put him to bed. At this point, I begin to seriously wonder about what The Moustache is supposed to imply. It turns out that Drunk Mooch Faced Chichi is really just an overly affectionate alcoholic and Kader Khan is some kind of...homeless person? Who in preventing DMFCC's suicide earned his eternal love and gratitude and friendship? It's just that the moustache and the lack of subtitles makes it seem...a little seedier than it perhaps is.

Of course – THE NEXT MORNING, sober Chichi has forgotten the night before (wow, he really was drunk) and has the poor homeless Kader Khan, who he had lauded as his close friend the night before, booted out of the mansion by his servants.

The next night though, there's Drunk Mooch Faced Chichi, in his Mercedes, pulling up beside Homeless Kader Khan proclaiming “Meri Kareeb Dost! Meri Bhai!” as if the brutal “get out of my house, tramp” had never happened.

So, Kader Khan being a clever tramp, realises pretty quickly which side his bread is buttered on. There's clearly only one solution: MAKE SURE THAT CHICHI IS DRUNK ALL THE TIME.

So...with Chichi drunk 24/7, it seems that Kader Khan gets to move in permanently, borrow a bunch of flashy suits and be employed in the mysterious company Chichi manages to continue to run DESPITE BEING DRUNK ALL THE TIME AND HAVING A HOMELESS GUY AS HIS SECOND IN COMMAND. An example of Drunk Moochy Face Chichi's questionable business values: interviewing a new recruit for the company (Rahul Roy) pretty much his first, most pressing question is “Do you drink?”

He hires New Guy, promising him some extravagant salary Not Homeless Anymore Kader Khan promptly contradicts, before sealing the deal with a handshake a drunken embrace. That's how Drunk Moochy Face Chichi rolls, at home, in the office, and YOU WILL LISTEN TO HIS RAMBLING, INCOHERENT BOOZE SOAKED STORIES IF YOU WANT TO GET PAID YOUNG FELLOW.

OH CHICHI. I can see now why you forsake facial hair. IT MAKES YOU GO ALL WRONG.

Sign of the Chichi-pocalypse #2: cut to another office in Drunk Guy and Homeless Dude Inc. and we meet a junior partner, Greasy SleazeBucket. Also known as SHAKTI KAPOOR. Mercifully, sans mooch, because if he was sporting face fuzz I would switch off this film RIGHT NOW in favour of washing my eyes with bleach (though really, I could have done that earlier, when I was treated to the Kader Khan shower scene).

 Someone out there finds this titillating. You're welcome. *shudder*

He seems concerned with women and large quantities of money. I also do not know why he is in the film at all given he will not appear again for AGES.

CUT TO: Somewhere in a basement, where DMFCC has a long slurry, impassioned monologue, delivered crouched on a chair while waving a glass around while his employees (?) watch and occasionally exclaim “Oh baap re baap!” I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT IS ABOUT but I just imagined every drunk conversation I have EVER had but with more melodrama. So like: “You know....you guuuuuuys...YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW ME DON'T TELL ME NOT TO STAND ON THE CHAIR MY DAD IS....(dramatic drunken whisper) GABBAR SINGH andhe'llcutyourarmsoff IF YOU DON'T GIVE ME MORE TEQUILA”. 

Note the crazy eyes. And the confused expressions. 

 

You know. Nonsense.

IT GOES ON FOR AGES and yet not once do I get the feeling I am missing a shred of vital plot information, possibly because for some reason, weird jaunty swing music starts playing as DMFCC starts speaking.

So ANYWAY. After about half an hour of all this drunken nonsense and incoherent shenanigans the film finally gets going, when Drunk Mooch Faced Chi Chi, in a rare burst of sobriety, offers a lift home to his new hire New Guy Rahul Roy. New Guy invites him in for a cup of tea but unless it's Johnny Walker, it won't pass that pencil mooch, so DMFCC declines. But as New Guy walks up to his door, DMFCC witnesses a beautiful woman come out to greet him.

A WOMAN THAT SENDS A LOOK OF RECOGNITION AND PAIN RIPPLING ACROSS DMFCC'S MUSTACHIOED FACE. Could she be the reason he is now a functioning alcoholic (who miraculously hasn't YET managed to piss away all his riches or break any of his beautiful teeth falling down in the street)?

FLASHBACK SONG WITH MOOCHLESS CHICHI SAYS YES!

 He's happy, because his face is SMOOTH. As it SHOULD BE. I do realise this is the exact opposite of the ideology that we should be embracing during #MouchoPrema but SOME PEOPLE SHOULD JUST NOT CARRY THE MOOCH.

Such a relief! HIS FACE IS RIGHT AGAIN. 

Can I just say: having context for the mooch is AWESOME. A) It reinforces that Govinda really never should have facial hair because OH THE RELIEF to see him moochless; but B) seing him mooch-faced when the song is over highlights the TRAGEDY that has befallen his character now. He's less creepy and weird and more heartbreaking and sad.

I was right: Drunk Mooch faced Chi Chi is drunk and mooch faced because of the Mystery Girl (Mamta Kulkarni) who is married to(?) his New Guy employee. He says all this stuff to his Kareeb Dost Kader Khan about not being able to forget her and getting rid of all her pictures and I guess the drinking was to ease the pain. Not sure how the mooch fits in but YOU KNOW WHAT CHICHI? GET RID OF IT AND SHE'LL PROBS LOVE YOU AGAIN.

Next ten minutes is about how Drunk Mooch Faced Chichi used to be Sober Hot Mechanic Chichi and how he loved and lost this girl. 

Chesty Chichi = sex symbol. Don't argue, I'm right. 

FLASHBACK: he wasn't rich enough or educated enough to impress her father when he went to discuss marriage. Her father who has a mustache eerily reminiscent of the one Drunk Mooch Faced Chi Chi will soon sport. I think Sober Chichi actually pissed off the dad somehow by refusing his money?, instead deciding to go away and make something of himself so he could return and be a man worthy to marry the woman he loves.

Anyway, Mystery Girl (I think her name is Pooja)'s dad is EVIL (you can tell from his skinny mooch) 

and when Sober Chi Chi leaves to make his fortune or whatever, Evil Dad burns all ChiChi's letters to Pooja and does the whole 2-faced concerned parent that is actually the root cause of the pain thing.

END FLASHBACK: Now DMFCC wants to win Pooja back...only she is with someone else. His new employee, New Guy Rahul Roy. DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN. End of VCD 1!

ADVENTURES AFTER INTERVAL:

So I took a break of a couple of days and it turns out that was a pretty bad idea because...I HAVE NO IDEA what is going on.

Either this film is on crack (possible), or the story is truly light years ahead of its time in terms of experimental film narrative...or maybe my comprehension problems have caught up with me. Whatever the case IT APPEARS THAT:

• Govinda's character – who I have finally cottoned on is named Krishna – is so drunk he is hallucinating the ghost of his former love seemingly berating him about something in his opulent mansion. Probably for abandoning her (from her perspective) because Evil Daddy drove a wedge between them by burning all Chichi/Krishna's letters.
• Whatever the hallucination says to Krishna pisses him right off because then he slaps her in the face really hard. I hate that slapping happens anyway, I hate when it's Govinda doing the slapping especially much. Another indication that MUSTACHE + GOVINDA = PURE WRONGNESS SANDWICH
• The ghost/hallucination is crying though, so maybe she's real. OH THIS FILM IS SO CONFUSING. Anyway. Krishna is all like THIS IS MY FATE and he's miserable and starts yelling and I'm guessing he's talking about not being able to be with the woman he loves, the one he just smacked in the face. THIS MOVIE SUCKS.
• Then Chichi goes to his bedroom and takes down the 400 pictures of Pooja that he had wallpapered his walls with, because I guess he's finally gonna let it go now she's married to someone else. Maybe he'll go for a full beard and step up the drinking (not actually possible). He doesn't take down the GIANT picture of Pooja he has in his lounge which causes problems when Shakti Kapoor pops up again, seemingly with the sole purpose to tell Rahul Roy that “Hey did you know Chichi has a giant picture of your wife in his lounge?” Obviously then Rahul Roy has to break in to verify this intel.
• Then Rahul Roy (Deepak! Finally figured out his character name!) KICKS POOJA OUT OF THE HOUSE because he thinks she has sullied his honour or been dallying with Krishna or whatever. He won't listen to her side of the story and is a dick about it. Dude, I have a picture of Govinda in my lounge, DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING.
• Pooja in her distress nearly gets hit by a truck – Homeless Kader Khan saves her. They have a big heart to heart and HKK must find out some vital info because then he goes to confront Evil Daddy...and Evil Daddy cries, so it's an effective meeting.

And then I got really bored. There are so many CONVERSATIONS that are so boring when they are largely incomprehensible, but basically, it seems like....it's all set up for Krishna and Pooja to get married despite her marriage to Deepak (there's so many conversations between Pooja's dad and someone's grandad and Chichi and Kader Khan but that was the impression I got, that the Krishna/Pooja rishta was all go) but then....

SHOCKING TWIST. ALSO SPOILER ALERT but omg this film is so boring so seriously this is the best part:

Krishna and Pooja arrive at the temple and I think you're supposed to think it's for their wedding, but OH NO there's Deepak sitting on the steps, and he is understandably pissed off when he sees them. But then: Krishna (who I think quit the drink as soon as he got Pooja back) is all like “Calm DOWN bro, I want you two to be together!”

At least, that's what I thought was happening. UNTIL CHICHI PULLED OUT A GUN and started ranting and raving, seriously, FOR AGES, all sweaty faced like a lunatic, and then SHOT HIMSELF IN THE HEART AND DIED.

And that's the end of the movie.

Are you freaking kidding me?!

I KNOW – WHAT THE EFF RIGHT? It's almost worth it just for the wtf awesomeness of the ending except:

IT'S NOT WORTH IT AT ALL YOU GUYS, THIS IS A TERRIBLE FILM.

I need to watch a movie with a good mooch to balance out all the weird bad mooch energy in this one, which will forever be known to me as “The OTHER Naseeb, or When Good Mooches Go Bad”.

Mooch LOVE

It's November already! The greatest month of the year - the month in which I was born, so how could it not be awesome - just got WAY MORE AWESOME with the invention of a new blogosphere theme, the brainchild of the divine Dolce And Namak.


This month is MOuchoPrema!


You guys: the month known around the world as MOvember, a month in which normally baby-faced guys actively try and rock the facial fuzz (usually for a good cause), has been adopted by us Bolly-bloggers as a celebration of ALL THINGS MOOCH in a filmi industry that tends to view facial adornment as a symbol of the ULTIMATE IN VIRILITY and MASCULINITY. (Isn't there in fact a saying about how if you don't have a mustache, you're not really a man, or something? Someone must know this?)


So - just to get this mooch party started right, I present to you my own list of my TOP TEN HOTTEST MOOCHES (in no particular order). (Obviously I am not picky about pesky stubble. OBVIOUSLY. My list, my flagrant disregard for "rules"). 

1. Abhishek Bachchan as Rikki Thukral in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. I know I said no particular order but this is undoubtedly Mooch #1. In fact, I never really saw the appeal of Abhi until I saw him with a mo as skeezy Taj seller Bunty in Bunty aur Babli. I would have bought anything off that man. 

2. Emraan can rock The Walrus, which in my head, I have renamed "The Hashmi".

3. I couldn't find a pic of it but pair this mooch with the white suit Tusshar wears in The Dirty Picture and OOH LA LA. Here, LOOK at his hotness! The mooch is such an improvement:

4. SHATRUUUUUUU! The man, as they say, was BORN to have a mustache. THE ORIGINAL MOOCH FACE!  Don't believe me? Look at him without one. 

5. HOTNESS. Jnr NTR can bring his mooch to any of my lists.

6. Sallu just looked good full-stop in Dabangg, but the pencil mooch (Shatru-inspired?) certainly didn't hurt.

7. To completely second Dolce and Namak's sentiments: I DO NOT KNOW WHY AJAY DEVGN WOULD EVER BOTHER TO SHAVE. 

8. Confession time: I THINK AKKI IS SUPER HOT WITH THIS MO. Shut up haters, I love CC2C too. I crack up EVERY TIME I SEE HIM SLIP ON THE BANANA PEEL.

9. No comment necessary, except to say Hot Papa Khanna is known as HOT Papa Khanna for a reason. MOOCH ADDS POWER.

10. Is it too weird that I just think Ram Charan Teja's mustache is really nicely manicured? Have I spent too much time thinking about mustaches today? Possibly. 

And one that breaks all the rules because it's really part of a full beard BUT HE CAN BREAK ALL THE RULES HE WANTS:

AMJAD KHAN I LOVE YOU AND YOUR FACIAL HAIR FOREVER.


Not all mooch power is positive though. Next post: the movie that made me see my favourite star in the creepiest of lights, thanks to his...horrific facial hair.