The Bicycle Thief

Bringing the spirit of Italian Neorealism alive, Vittorio De Sica created a masterpiece in 1948 that stands historic even today. The Bicycle thief starrs Lamberto Maggiorani and Enzo Staiolo as his son.

Unemployed, and desperately in need of work, Antonio is extremely happy when he is offered a job of pasting posters on the walls of the streets. The only condition is that he needs to have a bicycle. With his wife’s support, they sell their bedsheets to redeem their bicycle from the pawnbroker. Here we see how a man takes the bundle of bedsheets and goes up a towering wall of shelves to stack it with other bundles. So many bundles. So many people’s futures.

Unfortunately, Antonio’s bicycle gets stolen and we are taken on a journey with him across the streets and sounds of Rome, to find his bicycle. Here we see how the movie is structured episodically. Antonio goes to a theatre rehearsal to meet a trusted friend, who in his part time, works as an actor. He also sees the proceedings of a meeting where a communist leader is comforting the unemployed and gives them hope of finding jobs.

The father, son and their trusted friend head out to a bicycle market where all the bicycle parts are gathered and sold. The market is so vast and there are so many options that it’s impossible to locate their bicycle. The father and son team don’t give up hope. The father miraculously spots the thief in a distance and runs behind him to a brothel, and a fight ensues at the end of the chase. The father, in desperation, ends up stealing a bicycle himself. A very powerful ending.

De Sica’s use of non-actors worked wonders for the film. The character of Antonio, played by Lamberto who was a factory worker, brought out the realistic makeup of his character- one who is faced with life’s most difficult times. Post war, Italy was in shatters – economically and morally. We see the real conditions of the people who lived then, in poverty and desperation. When Antonio goes into the house of the accused, we are exposed to the living condition of the working class at that time. A bare minimal existence.

The father and son relationship is critical in the characterization of the two. They are two men on a mission. The child has clearly lost his childhood, and he is a little man, who needs to be able to meet life’s situations. There are several instances where we see the son is left to fend for himself while the father expects him to follow suit or simply be his equal partner. The little boy, however, is a child after all and we see this side of him come out in vulnerable situations, like when he cries when his father slaps him.

Vittorio shows religion in a matter-of-fact way. He seems to be non judgmental, but I find layers in his portrayal of it. He shows the Church having an overbearing control over the poor, who come for mass to get one square meal at the end of the sermon. The old man says “I sat through the service. I’m entitled to the soup.” So what happens to faith in God and the purpose of attending a sermon? Marx was right in saying “Religion is the opium of the masses”. How I see this statement come true in the film is, in two ways. One where the poor accept their miserable state and go to church for comfort and consolation. The other where people follow a faith unofficially – that of the fortuneteller. Their faith in her is blind, in spite of knowing what the outcome of meeting her might be.

It’s all a question of being a part of the system. A system of institutional control. Be it the Church, the police, the fortuneteller or the brothel. The brothel acts as the extreme opposite of the Church, yet ironically similar in its institutional functioning. Here, the services provided may not be considered “moral” but upholds its own standard of systemmatic control. The police again, will help you only if your problem is worth considering. A poor man’s bicycle falls as the least important. Antonio is sent away to look for it himself.

Antonio is a troublemaker in these settings because his behaviour is erratic. He is not “normal” because he broke the “peace” of the Church. They immediately want him out. But what crossed my mind is - who is more righteous? A man fighting to find his stolen bicycle or someone trying to exert power over the other for no miserable cause? Living in harmony with each other is only tolerated. These institutions contribute in creating an altruistic society.

The last scene, with its long takes, gives us a 360º view with a sweeping range of wide angles from different points of views. With the musical structure building, and the spatial design transforming to create a tense atmosphere with a conclusive theme music, the finale is no doubt, the most captivating scene in the film. The wide frame into which the father and son walk with the rest of the crowd is the most symbolic where we see the Director’s way of telling us that what we just witnessed is one story out of so many that happen everyday in the city of Rome.

The film beautifully depicts how desperation for a living can mean so much to someone in a particularly miserable state that it can push even the purest of men into crime. But who is left with a choice when living conditions are so hard, that one must not only fight to find a job, but also fight against all the unsocial elements that are out there to rob you of your happiness?

The movie reminded me of the Pursuit of Happyness, directed by Gabriele Muccino where Chris Gardner (played by Will Smith), questions the word Happiness. Why do we need to “pursue” it? Like it’s a constant battle to get it, the process which is the pursuit - a running after. Running after a thief who stole your most valuable possessions, or running the streets to reach a place on time. The film resembles The Bicycle thief in narrating the story of a father and a son, who are united in their mission of finding happiness. Like Antonio explains to his son, how happy they would be if they had the cycle and they could earn enough to eat and live well. Chris is in a similar battle against odds to prove himself and get through the route (the Pursuit) to find happiness.

The Bicycle Thief, more correctly The Bicycle Thieves is a narration of pushing the limits to find what matters most and how poverty leads to crime which only breeds more crime.

Watch it to understand the story of common man after the War, and his battle to come to terms with economic, social, political and moral systems of society.

Samson and Delilah

Samson and Delilah is an Australian film about two teenagers, who fall in love, and struggle together for survival. It stars Rowan Mc Namara and Marissa Gibson.

Two 14-year-old Aboriginal teenagers, Samson and Delilah live in a remote village, leading simple lives. Samson eyes Delilah, and constantly follows her. Although Delilah at first doesn’t fancy him, she finds herself staring at him when she sees him dance one night. With absolutely no verbal communication, he manages to get close to her once her grandmother dies, as he’s the only other person she knows around. They run away together in a stolen car. They never talk to each other.

The city is harsh. They find it difficult to survive, carrying nothing with them - no house to live in, no food to eat. They rely on a homeless man to give them food sometimes. We see instances where they care for each other. They work as a team when they need to steal from a supermarket. Delilah kisses him on the cheek to say thankyou out of affection. They only have each other.

The movie moves at almost zero talk between the two main characters. They look at each other, understand and live. Samson is addicted to the habit of sniffing petrol. It’s his only means of relaxation, a way to escape from what’s happening around him. Once they flee to the city, he gets so addicted that he can’t hear anything around him. He loses sense of sounds and actions. This detachment from the world happens to such an extent that he fails to notice when Delilah gets hit by a vehicle while she is walking behind him, or she gets picked up by three men in a car only to be raped later. The silence at those moments is deafening. It hits you like a thunderbolt.

What struck me the most about the movie is the haunting honesty with which the Director has shown the lives of the aborigines. With a lack of education, and a crude upbringing, we see how the two struggle to get food, and overcome day-to-day challenges of survival which is at its most difficult level for them in the city. They are looked as aliens from another planet, with great suspicion. What saddened me is that Australia with its rich culture from the Aboriginal community is used only to promote the country in terms of its arts and heritage. When Delilah buys chart paper and paints designs taught by her grandmother to sell it, she is completely ignored. When she steps into one of the stores that sell Aboriginal art, she is rudely sent back. Why do we “civilized” people live in such a farce? We open shops trying to use the works of the tribals to paint a pretty picture of the country and attract prospective buyers, but how many of us really care about them?

The film also brings out the traditions followed by the aborigines. Delilah cuts her hair after she discovers her grandmother dead. Samson does the same after he thinks he’s lost Delilah when she disappears.

Violence is part of their lives. Delilah is beaten up and accused for not taking care of her grandmother. She has no voice against her elders. Samson is beaten up by his own brother in retaliation to his assault of one of the band members who play outside his house. They get beaten up, get hurt and continue living. The film puts it simply. They accept it as a part of their lives.

When Samson and Delilah go to the city, they are treated no differently either. There may be no overt violence, but very open hostility from the city bred residents when they see them. Ironic, how the director has managed to show two sides of human hatred. On one side it’s brutal and physical, almost animal-like where emotions are laid bare with minimal verbal communication. On the other hand we see well-dressed, well-off people who may talk more and be more “literate”, nevertheless equally less inviting with hateful gestures and inconsiderate behaviour.

The music is rustic, and mostly in the background of what is playing in the village. The film is unhurried with its pace and takes us through brilliant visuals. The cinematography deserves special mention. The characters of Samson and Delilah steal the film’s thunder with perfect performances.

The name of the film, although seems to be disconnected to the Biblical characters, to me has a connection. In the film, Samson, unlike what legend has it, has no magical power or strength, but his strength lies in his desire for Delilah and how he goes about attaining her. She is a strong young women who knows how to go about life and follows Samson cautiously in the beginning, and then trusts him completely.

Love is a subject of debate. Because the two young people get entangled in the struggle for survival, sometimes we are not sure if they are capable of the emotions. They stick together, but some scenes with its stark brutality left me wondering. Do they have an option? They ended up together in the city, but their end once they reach there is to fend for themselves. Samson is devoid of feeling, especially when he gets lost in his world of sniffing. Delilah too, she returns everytime she disappears, but that’s because where else and who else will she go to? It’s more like a situation of wanting someone and also not having a better option to settle for something else. Hence, calling it a “love story” needs to be strongly contended.

Watch it for its numbing scenes, visual treat, honesty, innocence and hope. Hope to live and beat all the odds.

Wall-E

From the Director of Finding Nemo, comes another heart-warming animated film Wall-E, the story of a robot and a dying earth. Director Andrew Stanton did complete justice to his concept with mind-blowing computer animation. Despite the robots not having actual human voices, but communicating only with body language and robotic sounds, the film has managed to convery its message quite strongly.

Wall-E is designed to clean up waste covered Earth far in the future. He is a small machine with wheels who scoops up garbage, shoves it in his belly to compress it into a cube and piles it up neatly in stacks. Year 2105 has bore the brunt of the rule of Buy and Large (BnL) Megacorporation which caused mass consumerism, covering the Earth with trash, leaving no clean space for humans to live. To resolve the problem, BnL created an army of trash compactor robots Wall-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class) and evacuated all humans into space in a luxury star liner, “The Axiom”. Since the plan largely failed, humans had to live in space indefinitely, leaving a lone robot Wall-E cleaning all the trash. In the Axiom, the humans live with the help of machines - only.

Wall-E the lone robot, collects interesting things he finds in the trash and keeps himself alive by re-using the spare parts of other robots long gone. He has his own charming place to live, with all his treasures, and a TV that plays songs. He understands primate feelings such as love watching the gestures on TV. He is lonely, and keeps himself busy with his “work” and his close friend - a cockroach who he tames as his loyal assistant. Wall-E is almost human. Especially when he falls in love.

Eve is a delightful beauty Wall-E is enamoured by. She comes in a spaceship to Earth and Wall-E is simply smitten. The visuals are stunning. They introduce themselves with their names and nothing else and throughout the movie, they communicate only with the sounds of their names and expressions. There is no spoken dialogue between them. This makes the film so universal, especially with its planetary theme.

Lovelorn Wall-E follows Eve all the way back to space and enters a whole new world. We see people cruising on luxury seats, eating, talking and making merry. They are all fat and ugly and don’t walk. The machines do all the work for them, right from getting ready in the morning to transporting them around the “ship” for various other chores. They sip on a soft drink and are paralyzed on their chairs, completely dependent on their robots.

I recently watched the documentary “Super Size Me”, and simply cannot deny a similarity. While in Wall-E the director has gone a step ahead and shown us beautifully what could possibly happen to our world in the future, Super Size Me does not stay too far from the perception of the people shown in the Axiom. Supersizing everything around us, starting from ourselves, with supersized burgers, and cars and houses and buildings and machines to rule our lives, we simply become fat, lazy gluttons. Not to exaggerate it, but America is the fattest country in the world, and also incidentally one of the most developed. So what could be the deduction? Development is directly proportional to destruction? Possibly so.

The people living in the Axiom are excessively dependent on machines for their existence, with an air tv, air palm trees, an artificial beach, an umbrella shade that walks and opens when needed, with robots doing them up with make up and spa treatment, and with machines that help them brush their teeth and get dressed. Ironically, with the kind of lifestyles we have, we too are getting increasingly dependent on machines to live comfortably. It's interesting to note how our thoughts have evolved to deliberate visually and animatedly about the big debate - Man v/s Machines. Who will win the battle? Does the Captain of the spaceship have the power to rule over the machine who rules his life? We see this starkly when the captain struggles to overpower his robots who prevent him from going back to Earth. He has to learn how to walk! His only hope is the little green plant that Wall-E brings to space, which will allow them to live on Earth again.

Andrew Stanton, in his attempt to create a visual masterpiece, has succeeded in also teaching us an important lesson. If we don’t buckle up and try and save our planet by reducing wastes and avoiding products that are harmful to our environment, we are in for big trouble. We may find the consequences of our deeds too far away from our generation, but someday we need to take a step and give our trees a chance to let us live in dignity. Consumerism is taking away our right to live responsibly. The spaceship will rule us soon. That little speck of green will save our lives.

Watch it for its meaningful story, its lesson, its animation and most of all for Wall-E, for his adoring eyes and most human gestures, who in the end is our savior. He is our metaphor for change.

Man Push Cart

Directed by Raman Bahrani in 2005, Man Push Cart depicts the story of a former Pakistani rockstar who now earns a living by selling coffee and donuts from his pushcart on the streets of Manhattan.

The protagonist Ahmad, is a young man who seems numbed from the joys of life, because he has stopped living. He now only exists. He fends a way of living by rolling his push-cart during the early hours of dawn and arranging his mobile boulangerie to serve his customers with a fresh cup of coffee and donuts while they rush through the streets to get to their jobs. The bustling city around him is contrasted with Ahmad’s morose life with little else happening other than finding menial jobs to make ends meet.

His meeting a fellow Pakistani who recognizes him as the once famous Pakistani singer allows him the company of someone who not only understands his plight, but also is willing to help him. His possible romance with a Spanish girl at the magazine stand does not develop because Ahmad’s past does not let him. His love for his dead wife and longing to see his son who is in the care of his in-laws are verdict to his want to belong and his attachment to family. Ahmad also finds a kitten and takes it home to care for it. His very own little friend.

The story reflects the life of those in the streets of big cities who are often ignored, yet play a vital role in many peoples’ lives. Hunger pangs are satiated by a quick donut, or some bread that is easily available at the pushcart. Who would bother to ask the name of a vendor? Or care to know about his past? Why would anyone want to pause to think about their lives, their struggles for livelihood and their families? The stark contrast between the very well off and the not so well off is brought out with the selection of the theme. But for me, it ends there.

My first reaction to Ahmad’s character was that of a lack of life. There was a certain listlessness in his appearance, a lag in his thoughts and actions. For some reason, I felt a certain disconnect. Although I’m sure that the director only intended the bleakness in his character to embody his true inner struggle, the actor failed to communicate it in a believable performance. The emotions simply fell limp. Maybe he’s devoid of feeling any emotion, but that didn’t materialize in effect either.

The inability of the actor to translate the essence of his lonely being disappointed me immensely. Since the entire story revolves around creating sympathy for this character and people who may be leading lives like him, but more so for this particular character because of his past stardom, a weak presence only deteriorates the threads that hold the story together. The vacant eyes of Ahmad were not a vacant that conveyed a void, but a shallow dissonance of expression.

Ahmad’s desperation in the end when he loses his pushcart falls flat. The only part in the film when emotions rise and his frustration reaches a height, Ahmad’s acting does not convince me. Still. How he goes back to being the man with a new pushcart remains unexplained. Forgivable, as this is not an area of concern since it only underlines the fact of how someone when pushed beyond his boundaries and on the edge of living on a shoestring would go to any extent to retain a job they hold valuable.

The film has a good story, with an intention of exposing the lives of the people who live unrecognized, with little money and no real hopes, except to fend for themselves and their families. Watch it for its portrayal of the fight for survival at the most basic level, its attempt at expressing how a man’s past can be a closed chapter once the leaves of happiness fade.

Revolutionary Road

A British-American drama directed by Sam Mendes in 2008, Revolutionary Road starrs Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. The screenplay is based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Richard Yates.

Revolutionary Road takes us through the lives of a couple, the Wheelers, living in suburban Connecticut in the 1950’s. Frank and April meet at a party and get married. They create a life of their own with a house and two children, Frank with a stable job and April playing the housewife. They have a home that is perfect, well looked after, a manicured lawn and “modern” furniture. Cigarettes and martinis are a dominant part of their routine lives. As the days and months pass by, there sets a certain uneasiness in April about their regular existence.

April wanted to be an actor, but gave it up because she wasn’t good enough for it. Frank tried to be supportive but asked her to get over the dream simply because it would be better for both of them. The argument the two have over it gets nasty, and we see the buildup of the stress between them in having to prove themselves. The scene ends with a haunting silence as the couple sits in the car, heaving, exhausted, disconnected. It sets the theme of the film beautifully.

The Wheelers were a young couple who seemed like the unconventional sort, young and fresh and different. The lady who sold them the house, Mrs. Helen Givings, visits April one day and tells her that the first time she saw them, they seemed “special”. We see a certain sadness on April’s face when she hears these words, like as though, knowing they were special, they still led regular lives, like regular people. Her expression conveyed a yearning to be what people believed them to be. Taking a house on Revolutionary Road seemed ironic with them leading a life that is no different from the people around them.

April remembers how during the early days of their romance, Frank had told her how he always wanted to go back to Paris, because “people are really alive there, not like here”. He tells her how all he knew is he wants to really “feel” things. April’s memory of that conversation motivates her to start thinking of a change in their lives, of going to Paris! Frank can quit his meaningless job, while she can work to support him. This would give him time to think about what he really wants.

Convinced by this idea, they go about telling their friends, who feel that the plan might be immature. Frank is offered a promotion, and April gets pregnant. She goes to the extent of wanting to abort the baby, lest it affect their decision of moving out. Frank reconsiders the whole plan as he gets an offer of good money at his job. In the end, the whole unrealistic aspect of the plan comes to surface and Frank convinces April out of it. She gives up too, and continues her daily dreaded life, looking after the house while Frank joins the morning march of men in suits and hats.

This movie got me thinking of several things. How many of us exist like the Wheelers? Resigning ourselves to the daily grind because one needs to “settle down”? When April tries to convince Frank about the idea, she tells him, “We’ve bought into the same ridiculous delusion - this idea that you have to resign from life, and settle down, the moment you have children. And we’ve been punishing each other for it.” We see in her a desperate urge to get out of the rut and lead “interesting lives” believing that she would be happier. She knows that Frank is more content, married to her, with two kids and a home. The real struggle is within April. The plan is largely motivated by April’s own needs. We see the loneliness of the woman who spends all day at home tending it, knowing she wants something different, something that she longs for outside the small world of the home and husband. The desperation with which April goes about in wanting the plan to happen suggests her frantic urge to salvage her one chance. Her one chance to be free from the delusional world they are living in.

John, Mrs. Givings’ son, is believed to be “unwell” and was at the mental institute.
We see that his real problem was in telling the truth. He is the only person who understands what the Wheelers want, to get away from the emptiness and hopelessness of their lives.
He observes, “Plenty of people are on to the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.” He sees the frustration that a couple like April and Frank are going through and understands why they want to run away from their current existence.

A character like John is interesting to understand what people think of insanity. His ability to see the truth, tear away the façade in which the couple was living in, and strip away their denials is astounding. So what is truth? And what is insanity? Like Frank said, “Insanity is the inability to relate to another human being. It’s the inability to love”. But then isn’t what John sees the actual truth? In the real sense, it is John who sees life stripped from its plastic existence. He sees reality in all its bareness. The truth is hence, the reverse. It is the people who live in a façade that are insane. Love becomes a compulsion to allow for the smooth order of things. Love becomes an “ability” that is developed. Life becomes predictable; everyone becomes carbon copies of each other. The façade becomes the accepted norm and people are conditioned to believe in its rightfulness, in the process denying themselves their true spirit. So who is really insane?

The Wheelers are defeated in their attempt to be different. April is crushed under her fate. The last scene where April stands looking out of the window with the bloodstain on her skirt is powerfully symbolic. It’s like a permanent stain on their lives, on their neat carpet and clean house. A mark of irreversible devastation.

The film takes the American Dream to tragic levels, as the dream turns into a nightmare. The choice that one needs to make between wanting to just survive or “live” is stark in its honesty. Although many of us continue existing, how many of us really have the drive to see that spark in us and chase our imagination? The plan that April had might seem a tad bit unrealistic, but the fact that she wanted a way out shows how a person with potential can still be stifled under the norms of “living”.

In Frank also we see a need to be free and want to explore real things and “feel” things, but at the cost of what and whom? What about the children who need to be taken care of? How do we live the life that we always want to, yet manage to fulfill the roles we are meant to? More importantly, how do we really know what we want? These are questions that the film raises.

Powerful dialogues, with equally powerful acting and music, this film takes the concept of “living” to a completely different level. The phenomenal performances by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet engrosses us to live their experience.

We know no bounds to our fantasies, but how much of it can definitely be real? Watch it for its ability to move you to a point where you evaluate your own existence.

Zoo

Zoo, an eleven-minute documentary directed by Dutch filmmaker Bert Haanstra in 1962 is an amusing, touching and humorous look at the way people and animals behave. It is a montage of people’s expressions when they visit a zoo, and the animals’ expressions in return when they see people watching them. The shots are all cut-to cut put together by associational editing.

It is obvious that Haanstra has not filmed the documentary with the knowledge of the people or the animals. It is footage from a hidden camera, which captures a two-way relationship that the human beings and animals share without realizing it.

Zoo uses the associational form of editing to show relational continuity for narration, with music that contributes greatly to the feel and pace of the emotions at play. Haanstra masterfully mixes zoo footage of the people who gawk at animals and parallely shows footage of the animals’ reaction to the same humans who gawk at them. The animals are seen to gawk back at the people, thus creating meaning in the shots, a certain sarcasm, giving a feeling of continuity through editing.

An example of this relation can be seen evidently when we see school kids entering the zoo to see the animals, and Haanstra cuts to close ups of a giraffe and the ostrich and they also take a look at the humans who have come to see them, which throws open the question of who’s watching who in the zoo. We see the style of walking of kids, old ladies, a young couple, an elderly couple and then its cut to the walk/march of the penguins drawing a similarity. Hence although the animals and the people in the zoo have been shot at a different space and time, the relational continuity helps us to forget the difference.

The establishing shot is very strong too. Haanstra starts by showing the rails of the cage with a lion in it and then a shot of people walking into the zoo followed by an old man standing behind the bars, drawing a relational parallel between the lion and the man. The editing bringing out these specific shots in continuation to give a brilliant introduction to the purpose of the documentary - to show that animals watch people too and in many ways how people’s actions are similar to those of the animals. For instance, there’s a shot of a father carrying his young son on his shoulders followed by a shot of a baby monkey sitting on the shoulder of its parent.

The music is what really drives the story. Pim Jacob’s jazz music gives the images a punch and creates the pace and feel of the developing montage. The meaning of the shots is punctuated with variations in the flow of music that runs parallel with the action on the screen. The inclusion of animal sounds in between gives an impression of the characters crucial in making the film. The best example is that of the parrot’s voice that comes in between the jazz music.

Zoo’s specialty is the frequent use of "rhyming images" and of images blending into each other. The film is perfectly able to catch the peculiarities of human behavior when they watch animals in a zoo. It is a tribute to the animals who we mock, emote and laugh at, as the film shows us their point of view and how they equally mock and laugh at us. Zoo is a delightful mix of humor, emotion and genuine expressions.

Sita Sings the Blues

An animation movie directed by American artist Nina Paley in 2008, Sita Sings the Blues tells us the story of Ramayana, interspersed with episodes of the author’s own life. A delightful watch, the film has simple yet charming animation that easily strikes a chord with the viewer.

The film begins with the narration of the story of Ramayana, shifting focus to the story of Sita’s state of unequal treatment. The brave Sita is betrayed by her husband in the end because he suspects her of being impure, for no fault of her own. Interlacing the historic Sita to her modern day jazz self, we see a Sita who sings dreamily to the tunes of the legendary jazz singer, Annette Hanshaw. The narration of the story of Ramayana is done by three Indian shadow puppets played by Aseem Chhabra, Bhavana Nagulapally, and Manish Acharya. They link the episodes of the Ramayana with natural and lively discussions of their personal knowledge and impressions of the epic. The sarcasm in many areas is blaring and gives the viewers a non-chalant yet serious observational analysis of the unfolding story.

The jazzy Sita is a symbolic satire to how she conveys messages through her songs, singing very relevant tunes to the condition of Sita in the Ramayana. Slow and steady we see a saddening state of affairs as Sita is made to suffer despite her being a faithful and courageous wife.

The film parallely shows the contemporary story of a young American couple Dave and Nina, and their cat Lexi. The couple are young and in love. Dave takes a temporary job in India and flies to the country leaving Nina and Lexi back home. Nina misses him so much that she goes to visit him in India, only to find him cold and unresponsive. She returns back home to find a cruel message from him “Don’t come back. Love, Dave.” Nina stares at the message and her heart breaks. The film so literally shows her heart break into pieces. The silence before the sound of breaking glass is haunting and hits with a poignance.

The uncanny resemblance of Sita and Nina’s life brings us to a converging point of understanding their similar stories although each is based in different time, culture and generation. Both betrayed by their lovers and separated by long journeys, brings across a universal grief shared by women who are unfairly treated by their so-called lovers. The two characters rediscover themselves and are reborn in different forms. Sita is reborn as a lotus and Nina symbolically as she finds rage and solace in the Ramayana, inspiring her to make this film.

The film is remarkable for its versatility. The lively and colorful animation in Sita’s story brings across strongly the personalities of the characters. The two stories are brought out in two completely different forms of animation. While Sita’a story is narrated in a song and dialogue sequence with vibrant colors where episodes of the Ramayana resemble Rajput paintings, Nina’s story is portrayed in a completely different animation style. The modern, more personal element of the story is narrated using the rough, energetic squigglevision technique of animation. The drawings convey the restlessness inherent in the story, at the same time bringing across certain light-heartedness, universal in its tone, with its simple, highly stylized renderings of characters and environment.

What struck me the most was the power of the visual and narrative form that blended so perfectly. For instance, the song and dance sequence after Nina gets the cruel message from Dave is overwhelmingly heartening with its montage of images, music and color. The woman dancing to Indian music in a saree, amidst fire, then becoming a mere dancing skeleton has such powerful symbolism. Nina intelligently weaves the message in the underlying humor using exuberant drawings and bright colors. The message is serious.

In April 2009, there was a petition demanding for the complete ban on the movie by a conservative Hindu group who were offended by the film. They believed the film to be a derogatory act against the entire Hindu community. Some west-wing academics accused her film of being neocolonialistic. Yet, the film has won numerous awards including awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, Athens International Film Festival and Crystal Grand Prix, to name a few.

Sita Sings the Blues is fresh, delightful, original, and disturbingly stark with its juxtaposed narrative style of music, dialogues, monologues and one-of-a-kind animation. Watch it to be amused, enchanted, moved and empowered. It is a work of sheer brilliance and inspiration.