The Sita overview post is here.

The entire point of Sita Sings the Blues is this: a love story is a love story is a love story. Tragedy is tragedy, heartbreak is heartbreak. We see this most easily in the juxtaposition between Paley’s and Sita’s stories. We also see it in the animation styles. Ages-old shadow puppets, 18th century drawings, squiggly 20th century sketches, and modern vector graphics are all used to tell one story. Centuries-old Indian art styles and blended with 20th and 21st century American styles. We hear it in the Depression-era music and the conversational tone of the shadow puppets’ commentary. In the FAQ section of Sita‘s official website, Paley declares “I didn’t set out to tell THE Ramayana, only MY Ramayana.”

Paley saw something familiar in Sita’s story, despite the differences in time and place. The stories are set in “definitely BC” India, modern India, and the modern United States, but they’re both about devotion and loss. Each woman is in love with a man who is indifferent at best, each is sent away and abandoned, and each eventually comes to the realization that their ex-partners don’t deserve their devotion.

One of Sita‘s greatest strengths is that, even though the legend is tragic, the movie itself is not. At her most self-pitying point, Paley calls herself out by cutting in the commentary on the Ramayana. For most of the movie (excepting this scene and the beginning of “Sita’s Fire”), the two stories are allowed to exist side by side without touching, leaving the audience to draw the comparisons themselves. In this moment, however, Paley chose to merge them and aim criticism of Sita directly at herself. There’s no uplifting hey girl, his loss! It’s a moment of tough love in the middle of an otherwise lighthearted film. Telling Sita’s story helped Paley cope with her own heartbreak. I can imagine viewing this movie could help others with theirs.

Sita Sings the Blues is an animated feature written, directed, and animated by Nina Paley. Thanks to its Creative Commons license, you can watch it in its entirety on YouTube. It tells the story of Sita, a central figure of a Hindu epic, and parallels it with the story of Paley’s divorce. It seems to be a love it or hate it movie. It’s weird in a lot of ways that are either charming or tacky, depending on your taste. If you’d like a sample of Sita, clicking on the screenshots will take you to that scene in the movie.

Paley uses several different animation styles throughout the film to create visual distinction between the stories. Her own story is drawn in a loose, sketched style that appears to be her signature.

Dave, Nina, and Lexi the Cat

Sita’s story is told three ways: in a fairly traditional drama, in improvised commentary by a group of people who grew up with the story, and in musical numbers. The drama, in which Sita, Rama, and the rest have dialog and interact directly with each other, is portrayed in what looks like traditional 18th century Rajput art (yes, I’m linking to Wikipedia for this one; remember, this is just an overview). They look like Paley cut them out of a textbook — which fits the straightforward narrative style — and is moving them around like paper dolls.

Sita refusing Ravana’s advances

Contrary to what one might expect, the modern Indian commentators are animated as shadow puppets. This is what first reminded me of Sita in our discussion of Reiniger. More on that in a later post. The paper dolls reappear here with over-the-top comedic manipulation, almost like graffiti. The doodles look like they were done with cut-paste and the paint brush tool in MS Paint, which heightens the comedic effect and the irreverent tone.

The commentators discussing Ravana, the villain

The musical numbers are easily my favorite version of the story. You’ll notice that Annette Hanshaw is billed as the star in the opening credits. Hanshaw was a jazz-pop singer in the later half of the 1920s. (Fun fact: she performed some songs as proto-Betty Boop Helen Kane impersonations, including “I Wanna Be Loved By You” and this song that I dare you to listen to all the way through. The rest of her repertoire is much better.) In the musical scenes, Sita lip syncs to Hanshaw’s songs. These scenes are even more cartoon-y than Paley’s modern story. It’s all bright colors, bubble bodies, and vector animation. I love it.

“Here We Are”

And then there’s Sita’s fire. Spurned by her husband, Sita throws herself onto a funeral pyre as a show of her anguish and worthiness of Rama’s love. In the movie, this scene is portrayed twice. The first time is in a musical number with bobbing palm trees, dancing monkey-men, and a char-broiled Sita smiling and singing in flames. The second time is after Paley is dumped by her husband. Reena Shah, who provided the speaking voice for Sita, performs an original dance, which Paley rotoscopes and puts on a vivid, erratic background. It’s honestly beyond description. If you watch nothing else of this movie, watch this scene. (Heads up, it features bright, rapidly flashing images.)

“Sita’s Fire”

Sita provides so much material for discussion that I could probably write the rest of the semester’s blog posts on this one movie. I’ll only do three: this introduction to the movie, a quick interpretation of it, and an analysis of its influences.