Animated Rāmāyaṇas

One would have thought that, with a name like "Waiting for Kalki," I might have posted about Hindu mythology every now and then, instead of just animation. Well, for once, here's something which includes both.

Exhibit A: A trailer for the (thankfully never released, I think) American dub of the Japanese-Indian co-production from around '92 or '93. It doesn't seem to have been released in Japan until '98, and premièred in the USA in 2000. Someone claims to have had it on VHS in the UK, with the American dialogue but the original Hindi songs.


Exhibit B: The trailer for Sita Sings the Blues, a Flash-animated feature film being made by one woman, with already existing music and (as of yet) no actual dialogue. It's also the subject of the first episode of Toonbytes.


Exhibit C: A surprisingly adept blue screen and paper cut-out animation made by primary schoolchildren (and, I suspect, some technologically literate and rather ambitious staff). The result is somewhere between La Planète sauvage and the Blue Cow stories in The Story Makers.


Exhibit D: Lastly, and not animated, but the most lovely of these, if only for its Philip Glass/Nico Muhly-inspiring soundtrack is this musical mime-drama from Java, kindly uploaded by elibris. Sita/Sinta's narration during the first part is heart-wrenching, and spookily reminiscent of the mothers' lament in Les Noces.
Part I • Part II • Part III • Part IV