Sitges ’18: Seder-Masochism

Religion is supposed to hurt a little. That’s how you know its working. Like a medicated balm, first it stings and then it soothes. Animator Nina Paley maybe doesn’t quite see it that way. She explores Exodus, Passover, and her own family’s ambiguous relationship with Judaism from a feminist perspective in Seder-Masochism (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Sitges Film Festival.

Paley’s endlessly inventive feature debut, Sita Sings the Blues, was such a blast of pure animated delight, it is inevitable her sophomore feature will look like disappointment in comparison, so let’s try to set Sita aside for the present moment. In some ways, Paley repeats the same formula, mixing animated mediums, as well as the sacred and the profane. The net results are nowhere near as charming, but there are plenty of raucously funny and strangely beautiful moments.

Paley goes Old Testament on us, but her soundtrack is hip and hummable, including Gene Kelly & Donald O’Connor’s “Moses Supposes,” Louis Armstrong’s “Go Down Moses,” Josh White’s “Blood Red River Blues,” John Lennon’s “Woman,” Led Zeppelin’s “Your Time is Gonna Come,” and Pat Boone’s “The Land is Mine.” Frankly, watching Paley match up music to each segment is a good deal of fun. In fact, it is probably safe to say this film can claim the greatest use of “Free to Be You and Me,” probably ever.

On Paley’s drawing board and animation imagers, every notable event in Exodus eventually segues into a lavish MGM-style production number, which is cool. At its best, it is a slightly tasteless religious comedy, in the tradition of Mel Brooks’ History of the World, Part I and Wholly Moses!—the sort of amiably tasteless film that probably couldn’t be made with live actors anymore.

Sometimes Seder is quite droll, but there are times when Paley sabotages herself by introducing real news footage, including scenes of carnage from the many wars of self-defense Israel has been forced to fight. Honestly, nothing kills the mood quicker than September 11^th footage. No matter what her intentions that just creates all kinds of bad karma.

Still, there are some droll moments in the interviews Paley recorded with her late father, wherein he explains why he still observes the traditions of his Jewish heritage, even if his own faith is a bit iffy. She also creates some wonderfully sly and subversive images. However, the film lacks the joyous uplift that made Sita so special (ultimately, there is just no avoiding comparisons).

Paley is an extraordinary animator, who is drawn to big, significant themes. However, Seder will probably be regarded over time as a relatively minor work from her. It is worth seeing for her visual artistry and taste in music, but fans of Sita should temper their expectations. Amusing but not transcendent, Seder-Masochism screens this coming Tuesday (10/9) during Sitges and Friday (10/19) as part of Animation is Film in Los Angeles.

NYICFF ’15: Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet

He was born into a Maronite Catholic family and wrote his best known work in English, but Kahlil Gibran was subsequently embraced as a symbol of Arab culture. Without question, his best known work is The Prophet, arguably the original break-out New Age bestseller, whose celebrity admirers include Elvis Presley, John Lennon, and Salma Hayek. Her regard for the instantly recognizable Knopf title was such that she produced a big screen animated adaptation of the book few would have thought adaptable. The ambition and animation are definitely impressive, but the source material remains unwieldy in Roger Allers’ Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet (trailer here), which screens during this year’s New York International Children’s Film Festival.

In order to give the film a central storyline, Allers took some liberties with the framing device. The exiled prophet Mustafa (here more of a hipster painter and poet) is indeed bidding a fond farewell to the citizens of Orphalese, but he will not simply hop on the tall ship and sail off into the sunset. The oppressive Pasha and his thuggish police sergeant are planning permanent measures to halt his progressive influence before they let him go anywhere. The resulting narrative is like a weird passion play, with the assorted peasants in the countryside and merchants in town celebrating his presumed release with much feasting and drinking. At each stop along the way, Mustafa gives the crowd a pithy bit of prose poetry wisdom that are impressionistically rendered by a diverse roster of animators.

No longer is Almitra a seer. She is now the rebellious mute daughter of Kamila, the widowed housekeeper hired to tidy up the prophet’s exile cottage. Sharing a connection with the island’s seagulls, she is the first to suspect the fate awaiting Mustafa. Presumably, these liberties taken with the text pass muster with the Gibran establishment, given their active role in the production.

Regardless, the film as a whole is necessarily uneven, since Allers and Hayek-Pinault (as she is billed here) deliberately embrace its episodic structure. Not surprisingly, the best sequences are “On Love” animated by Tomm Moore (Song of the Sea) and “On Marriage” crafted by Joann Sfar (The Rabbi’s Cat). The abstract nature of the texts are also particularly well suited to the styles of Nina Paley (Sita Sings the Blues) and Bill Plympton (Cheatin’). However, the other four parables largely blend together.

Following in the footsteps of Richard Harris’s Arif Mardin-produced musical interpretation of The Prophet, Liam Neeson continues the Irish Gibran tradition as the voice of Mustafa. To be fair, his husky, reassuring tones are rather well suited to the film. Hayek-Pinault is perfectly serviceable as Kamila. (Since she is once again playing a mother facing difficult circumstances, Prophet should really be considered a companion film to Everly and the two should be screened together whenever possible). Quvenzhané Wallis gets precious little actual dialogue as Almitra (but perhaps that is just as well), while Alfred Molina does his best to keep up with the slapstick humor directed at his pompous Sergeant.

Whatever you do, always observe the authorial possessive in the title, like “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Although the film’s cultish impetus is a little creepy, it is intriguing to see such a high profile attempt at impressionistic, non-narrative animated filmmaking. Unfortunately, some of the contributing filmmakers are better suited to the task than others. A strange hybrid, Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet is recommended for animation enthusiasts who want to see something a little outside the norm (whereas younger viewers will probably find it indulgently lecture-y) when it screens again today (3/22) at the DGA Theatre, as the closing film of the 2015 NYICFF.

An Animated Joy: 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 former 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 finally receives a legitimate New York theatrical run after wowing the festival circuit and experimenting with online distribution methods.

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. Following in that tradition, Paley enlists the voice of Annette Hanshaw, a popular vocalist of the 1920’s and early 1930’s often backed by top band-leaders like Benny Goodman and the Dorsey Brothers, to tell the story of Rama’s long-suffering wife Sita. 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 flirtation and 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) that pertain to Sita, from her perspective. She willingly 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 Rama and Sita devastated by their rough separation, we also witness the contemporary parallel story of Nina and her husband Dave. She also finds the considerable distance between them quite troubling, 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 cartoons 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 silhouettes. While their improvised commentary might confuse as much as it illuminates, Paley’s accompanying animation is frequently hilarious, even approaching brilliant.

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—her rendition of “Mean to Me” being a particularly apt 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. Absolutely charming and consistently inventive, Blues is far superior to anything released by Disney, Dreamworks, or Pixar in recent years. As a free content advocate, Paley has Blues available for free on several online sites, but it deserves a big screen and an undivided attention. Probably the most genuinely entertaining animated film of the decade, it opens appropriately enough on Christmas Day at the IFC Film Center.

(Images: www.SitaSingstheBlues.com)