Banhart sings the blues
Folk rocker Devendra Banhart and his actress-girlfriend Natalie Portman put together a desi-inspired vid for his song ‘Carmensita’ (Little Carmen). It starts off with the highly underused Indian censor certificate and references Sita in the Ramayana, the Mahabharata serial’s crappy special effects, Shiva myths, Kali and Bollywood dance:
I like the concept, especially the dual languages. The subtitles explain what’s going on in the video story; the Spanish lyrics have little to do with it, proceeding in parallel. But the whole shambolic shebang is highly exoticist. Like how Banhart got his first name, it taps into an American strain of Indica which rose during the hippie era. Many Americans don’t take Hinduism seriously, treating it as little more than a source of kitsch art, rummaging though a cultural flea market. The scrolling Hanuman Chalisa in the beginning and gibberish names in Devanagari script hardly help.
Here’s a bad machine translation of the lyrics:
| Ay tu primo colorado Con barba camburada Y lleno de ballena Inclinadose al sol Ay tu rayo de luz roja Ay tus tres ojos lunares Ay tu barba colorada Si la noche te persigue Dame algo tierno Primo granje Ay tus ojos colorados No lo sueltes por favor |
Ay, your red fool Ay, your ray of red light Ay, your three lunar eyes Ay, your red beard If the night chases you Give me something tender First granje Ay, your red eyes Please don’t let go |
(via Anonandon and Pitchfork)
on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008, 10:47 am in Music, Religion, Video clips › 
Email this
› 
Facebook this
› 
Reddit this
› Link
› Reader links
Sigh.
This reminds me of the time (um, last week) when an elderly man who is studying to become a priest asked me, “What do you think about your Hindu myths?”
Hipsters with nothing better to do, remind me of Hippies invading South Park.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=z1Rmqymdjr0
whoa! gibberish names machang? I didnt pay that much attention to the run-through but they mos’ def got devendra right. [?????????] . Check out google’s toy.
hey, that’s way better than random redeyed goatbeards coming up to me and gibbering in arabic or something. i need to carry a spare chaddi for such instances every time i walk downtown in civvies. brother cant even relax on the street. too much tenshun.
The most annoying thing is when someone from Haavad (where Portman went) or Pomona who took Asian Religions 101 thinks they are in a position to school actual Hindus about their own faith.
yawn! not my kind of long haired hippy dog.
khoofilicious, i’ll be gettin’ hippy huggy wit choo!
The problem is not that they don’t take Hinduism seriously enough, it is that they take the other religions too seriously.
it would have been kind of cool had devendra gone oldboy at the end.
p.s. in the behind the scenes version of the same clip, choi min suk bowed and apologized before the camera rolled. i appreciated that.
Devendra is cute without the beard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ucp6uBiVuo&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2AerHut_8M
oh, and about “Many Americans don’t take Hinduism seriously” :
Many Hindus dont take Hindooism seriously either. Its not meant to be taken seriously.
Theres no 5 times a day namaaz and theres no sunday mass. You can pick and choose and pray to the God that you like most. And no missionaries on a covert conversion mission.
Its the coolest religion out there.
India tries to be cool by copying American movies.
Now America is trying to be cool by copying Indian movies.
We’ll say this one is the artistic equivalent of Heyy Baby. *__^
didjuall notice the title shot says Kamasutram when it pops up Carmensita at the 0:15 mark. this is not a random parody imho. someone took a lot of trubble to get a parody that is violently off, but inoffensively so. love it. although that devendra dude is bold to yank out that spiraly knife out of his crotch .
a (more) accurate version of the lyrics in English would be:
“oh, your blushing cousin, with a camburada beard, full of whale, leaning towards the sun. (camburada is a Venezuelan banana drink, it could be he is referring to a similar coloring between the beard and the drink)
oh, you red ray of light, kissing our mouth, the kiss he/she blows towards you tastes of Pampero (the name of the western wind in Argentina or alternatively, the name of a brand of Venezuelan rum). <- in the song the line sung is different to the lyrics you provided and actually says “the kiss he/she blows towards you smells of alcohol”.)
oh, your three moonlike eyes, alien/extraterrestrial/not from this world, they enter as you leave, that is why they can not be seen.
oh, your red/colored beard, playful and rebellious, I shave with a sword, but it comes back (returns) <- (this line is actually grammatically incorrect in Spanish, if anyone is interested.)
if the night chases you, give yourself to it, or tell it that you have a headache, little shadow of a reflection.
give me something tender, I eat your love, and shit hell, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
cousin granje (?) hello Bernardo… (this is not actually in the song either)
oh, your red eyes, blue and orange eyes, yellow, green and brown, my love is enveloped in your heart.
please don’t let go of it, we are (like an) elephant and a snake
drinking aguardiente (a very strong type of distilled liquor found all over latin america)
in the sun of a flower.”
Devendra Banhart is Venezuelan-American and was raised in Caracas, hence the Spanish and the encounter with Bollywood through very bad Spanish subtitling. The kitschy-ness may be because of a flip attitude towards Bolly (I don’t see it as referring to Hinduism) or it may be nostalgia for the very poor Spanish subtitles of his youth.
Ya, this is totally wack hipster kitsch. I’m not offended, nor do I think it insults Hinduism…it’s just a lame white kids’ attempt at being exotic and cute.
Yep, but the screens with the characters’ names were gibberish.
i thought it was creative gibberish. and somebody took tremendous pains to make it as inauthentic and gaudy as possible. the budget for this pro’ly exceeded the budget for the entire ramayana tele-series. i enjoyed it and given that there really was nothing offensive about it in the religious context, somebody actually had to have been very well informed on hindu mythology to have made this. good going. mugambo khush hua.
on second sitting, i can see that. i got the devendra and the kamasutram but yea. portman showed up with a strange looking ‘Tatra’! (?)
Ahm… Irene, quite right. But mostly you made the correction for the alcohol thing. Kudos. Oh and he says “Me afeito con espadas pero devuelve coño” For me its seems he is cursing heheheh which is kinda cool.