NYICFF: Sita Sings the Blues

Dumping someone over e-mail—how lame is that is? Self-taught animator Nina Paley found out first-hand, when her jerk of a partner ended their relationship after accepting a supposedly temp gig in India. At least the experience provided the seeds of inspiration for her debut feature, Sita Sings the Blues (trailer here), which screens this weekend as part of the New York International Children’s Film Festival.

The life of Rama deeply inspired the Muslim-born Hindi poet Kabir, whose work has been stirringly set to music by the ecstatic Sufi Qawwal singers. To tell the story of Rama’s long-suffering wife Sita, Paley enlists the voice of Annette Hanshaw, the popular vocalist of the 1920’s and early 1930’s, who was backed by most of the top jazzmen allowable in her era (meaning white), which even included Benny Goodman and the Dorsey Brothers. Though she retired early, her playful, bluesy style and her impish sign-off, “that’s all,” have maintained Hanshaw’s cult-following over the decades. Her songs of heartache now give voice to Sita, who despite being the Earthly incarnation of the goddess Lakshmi, was still done grievously wrong by her man.

Blues retells the parts of the Ramayana (the great Sanskrit epic), which pertain to Sita, from her perspective. She follows her husband into exile when his father is forced to banish him. Their time in the literal wilderness is actually quite happy, until the fateful day King Ravana of Lanka is manipulated into kidnapping her. As we see Ram and Sita devastated by their rough separation, we also witness the contemporary parallel story of Nina and her husband Dave. She is also distressed by the considerable distance between them, but for him—not so much. The stressful time spent apart would ultimately undo both couples.

Paley frequently switches gears visually, employing a wide variety of animation styles for each portion of her narrative. Sita and Rama come to life both as ornate figures inspired by Indian classical painting and more whimsical cartoon figures for Hanshaw’s musical interludes. Nina and Dave are simpler—not quite Terrance and Phillip of South Park, but nowhere near as sophisticated as the various Sitas and Ramas. Giving it all structure and context for western audiences are Paley’s narrator friends, represented in stylized profiles. While their improvised commentary might confuse as much as it illuminates, Paley’s accompanying animation is frequently hilarious, even approaching brilliance.

Paley’s film is chocked full of clever bits of business and some sharp dialogue. However, its finest moments come when marrying the music of Hanshaw with the ancient, exotic tragedy of Sita, with her rendition of “Mean to Me” being a particular standout. Indeed, the blues are truly universal. Though it has a very grown-up sensibility, aside from the occasional cursing, it is by-and-large appropriate for audiences of all ages. Enormously entertaining and consistently inventive, Blues is the best animated film produced in recent years—far superior to anything released by Disney or Pixar this decade. A highlight of the festival, it screens again Sunday (3/15) at the DGA Theater.

NYICFF: Azur & Asmar

There is something eternally compelling about the archetype of the two young rival princes that crosses cultural borders. French animated filmmaker Michel Ocelot is also one for crossing cultural divides, as he does with his latest film, mixing elements of Cain and Abel fraternal competition with the heroic quest of epic fantasy. Ocelot also adds a pronounced message of racial tolerance to Azur & Asmar (trailer here), which screened at this year’s New York International Children’s Film Festival, and is currently in limited release across the country.

Azur is white, Asmar is black, but they are both raised by the same woman. Azur calls her Nanny, Asmar calls her Mother. Together they sit enthralled by her stories of her native land (a fantastical realm modeled on North Africa) and the captive Djinn Fairy, until his absentee father suddenly sends him to boarding school, cruelly casting out Asmar and his mother.

When Azur completes his education, he spurns the world of his waspy father, setting off on a quest to Asmar’s native land, in hopes of freeing the Djinn Fairy and thereby restoring the kingdom’s spiritual health. However, after roughly landing on-shore, he finds himself despised by the locals for his “unlucky” blue eyes.

The racial discrimination endured by the blonde, blue-eyed Azur probably sounds more heavy-handed than it actually plays out on-screen. He does find a measure of social acceptance once he reunites with her former Nanny, now a respected pillar of the community. Of course his rivalry with Asmar has only deepened with time and will come to the fore as they both set off to liberate the Djinn Fairy.

Ocelot’s animation is quite distinctive, mixing both 2D and 3D techniques. His lush, Byzantine backgrounds are truly striking, but the facial features of his characters are essentially flat and inexpressive, which is a drawback. In fact, both princes are rather dull figures, though the fish-out-of-water Azur is fleshed out far more than the resentful Asmar. Easily the strongest personality to emerge from his fable is, in fact, the spirited young Princess Chamsous Sabah. Of course, such matters of characterization should only concern adults in the audience. A&A has more than enough exotic adventure and fantastical creatures to keep younger viewers thoroughly rapt. It even ends on an Aesopian note that gives the story a satisfying twist.

A&A is an elegantly crafted story with undeniably good intentions. While Ocelot takes the time to point out a mosque, church, and synagogue, peacefully coexisting under the night’s sky, in the reality the North Africa and Middle East which inspired him, such tolerance is largely as outlandish as his giant red lion. At least it looks beautiful on-screen, like the rest of his film. It is currently playing in San Francisco at the Landmark Opera and opens in Grand Rapids at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts this Friday.

NYICFF: Circus School

Gold Medalist He Kexin became the face of the 2008 Olympics when contradictory reports regarding her age raised doubts whether she was old enough to compete. Of course, the Olympic committee unquestioningly accepted China’s documentation at face value. Would the Chinese actually train girls so young for international competition? The answer is clearly yes, at least in the case of their acrobatic schools, like the one featured in Guo Jing and Ke Dingding’s documentary Circus School (trailer here), which screened at this year’s New York International Children’s Film Festival.

At least the Shanghai Circus School is not coy about their students’ ages. While most of the girls Guo and Ke follow are between nine and twelve, the youngest enrolled there are six. Most of those students are in Circus School because they have washed out of more prestigious training programs. At Shanghai, the pressure will only get worse for nine year-old trapeze student Xu Lu, who emerges as the tiny rooting interest of the documentary.

Cheng, the principal, selects the trapeze and triple handstand teams as the school’s best hopes in an upcoming acrobatic tournament, despite Xu Lu’s coach deriding her as a “disaster.” However, it is the triple hand-standers who meltdown in training, resulting in an old school Maoist public dressing-down for their disgraced coaching team. Nobody at the Shanghai Circus School seems to be having fun, especially including the faculty.

Against expectations, Xu and the trapeze team steadily improve, but it is a hard process to watch, as her small frame is thrown around and repeatedly dropped (into safety nets, but not without wear and tear). In a particularly painful episode, she is slammed against an iron handrail during the morning practice for the tournament pre-selection. “Such a little girl” one bystander remarks as she is carried out of the auditorium, crying in obvious pain. Yet that evening, she dutifully performs an understandably rocky routine.

At times, Circus School is frankly difficult to watch. The forced stretching the directors capture more closely resembles torture than healthy exercises. The sight of very young children crying is quite common in the documentary. One wonders if it might be too intense for younger viewers, even though they would readily identify with the young subjects.

Guo and Ke eschew narration and talking head interviews, simply filming events as they unfold, fly-on-the-wall style, and presenting the results to the audience unfiltered. Unless the filmmakers were consciously and deliberately biased in the editing process, the principal and faculty can only blame themselves for coming across as cruel taskmasters on-screen. While Circus School is destined for life on PBS, the longer festival cut really should be seen. While frequently wince-inducing, it opens an unforgettable window into the lives of its diminutive subjects.

NYICFF: Son of a Lion

Delivering a bag of bullets and a chunk of hashish to his grandfather is a typical errand for young Niaz. Both products are very definitely a fact of life in the Northwest Pashtun area of Pakistan, realistically rendered in Australian director Benjamin Gilmour’s Son of a Lion (trailer here), which screened at the New York International Children’s Film Festival, as part of this year’s special series: Children and War.

Niaz’s father, Sher Alam Afridi, is a former mujahideen fighter who needs little prompting to tell listeners he was one of only thirty fighters to survive a Soviet attack, out of a group of two hundred. He has specific plans for his son, which does not include a formal education. At least, he will learn an in-demand trade working in his father gun repair workshop.

Images of guns dominate Gilmour’s presentation of Pakistan, but the level of gun safety practiced would horrify any card-carrying member of the NRA. The shockingly irresponsible practice of test firing into the air is a common occurrence, with more thought given to collecting the spent cartridges than worrying about where the bullets might land. The grim reality that what goes up must come down eventually becomes painfully clear to Niaz’s clan.

Niaz Khan Shinwari, the child actor acting playing Niaz Afridi is quite convincing as a young man torn between family loyalty and ambition for a better life. Unlike the unfortunate young actor in The Kite Runner, nothing untoward happens to his character on-screen which might threaten his safety in real life (although he is propositioned by a sexual predator on the streets of Peshwar).

The Pakistan of Lion is a scary place, for some reasons younger audiences might not fully understand. Afridi and his colleagues traffic in the most virulent anti-American rumors and 9-11 conspiracy theories imaginable (which of course absolve Bin Laden, whom they then contradictorily praise for standing up to the Americans), without hearing any word of contradiction. However, they should be able to appreciate the central father-son conflict that lies at the heart of the film.

Though Gilmour singles out Pakistan’s gun culture for rebuke, it seems to be more of a symptom of deeper societal problems, which require real education—that which fosters genuine understanding and tolerance. Quite successful at transporting audiences to such an isolated corner of the world—physically and ideologically, Lion is worth screening should the opportunity arise. It was an interesting selection for the NYICFF, which is now in its second weekend and continues next Saturday with more family friendly afternoon screenings.

NYICFF: New Boy

It is a film based on the work of Roddy Doyle, bestselling author of The Commitments, which many probably have not heard of, despite receiving an Academy Award nomination this year. That is because it is a dreaded short subject, one of those unheralded awards that are dispensed with early in the Oscar broadcast. New Yorkers now have another chance to see writer-director Steph Green’s New Boy, based on a Doyle short story, at the New York International Children’s Film Festival, as part of their second program of short films.

It is young Joseph’s first day in a new school and it is conspicuously obvious he is not Irish. Derisively called “Live Aid” by one of the school’s Hellions, he is clearly in for a long day. On the plus side, the feisty class brain, Hazel O’Hara, clearly takes a real shine to him. In between class-work and standing up to bullies, Joseph flashes back to his tragic final days in Africa, when the war and strife of the outside world roughly intrudes into the loving shelter of his school.

Olutunji Ebun-Cole and Sinead Maguire display enormous screen charisma, as Joseph and Hazel respectively. Spending an entire feature-length film with them might be enough to induce diabetes, but in New Boy’s brief but diverting eleven minutes, their charm is undeniable. While the characters of Joseph’s would-be tormentors and clueless new teacher are not nearly as sharply drawn, New Boy’s brevity probably necessitates a certain reliance on stock characters.

Cinematographer P.J. Dillon’s rich, warm visual style serves the heartfelt film quite well, particularly during the light saturated flashback scenes. Although the narrative does not really hold any earth-shattering surprises, the final payoff is reasonably satisfying. The real attraction in New Boy though is its winning lead performance from Ebun-Cole and Maguire’s effective supporting turn. If not as rich a film as Toyland¸ the 2009 Oscar winner for live-action short, New Boy is an entertaining little film, which screens at the NYICFF tomorrow, Sunday, and Saturday the 14th.