Seder-Masochism

Back in 2008 the brilliant and irrepressible Nina Paley blessed the world with her one-woman masterpiece Sita Sings the Blues, one of the most enjoyable and best-reviewed films of all time (if you haven’t seen it, download it for free now – like all her works Nina dedicated Sita to the public under a Creative Commons license).

Ten years later she is back with the playful, irreverent, politico-feminist Seder-Masochism, a musical retelling of the old testament Exodus that is provocative on oh-so-many levels. The film is a no-holds-barred takedown of patriarchal religion and the suppression of pluralistic female fertility goddesses in favor of a violent, wrathful, misogynist, monotheist deity – but done in a cheeky Busby Berkeley-style, with singing Moses, Pharaoh, and Angel of Death belting out hits from Gloria Gaynor to Led Zeppelin to the Beatles. Some will be offended, the rest of us will sing along in giddy merriment.


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