An animated version of the epic Indian tale of Ramayana set to the 1920s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw.
Co-writer/Director: Nina Paley
Stars: Annette Hanshaw, Aseem Chhabra, Bhavana Nagulapally, ... Nina Paley.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1172203/
Watched on AmazonPrime.
22 songs in the Soundtracks, 11 Sung by Annette Hanshaw.
Very limited animation, reminiscent of UPA (50s/60s).
Three layers: 1) Nina Paley's breakup story, where her live-in bf gets a job in India, is away for a year, she joins him, but when she's called back to the US for a week, he dumps her by email. 2&3) Indian storytellers in silhouette (with holes in Indian design) argue over what is the tale, then animation of the tale takes over with an Annette Hanshaw song. These 3 elements rotate through until we get the disappointing ending: NP (animated) was reading a book of Ramayana, and puts it on the shelf next to other Indian tomes. The End.
The dvd is very highly priced today.
Rated 7.6 (4,119)
(none), dir. Paley; 6
