Sita Sings the Blues is an animation by Nina Paley which will easily charm you. While you may think Ramayana isn’t one you want to watch an animated version of for about 80 minutes (afterall it IS quite sad, right?) Paley’s efforts have created an animated story telling full of visual and aural pleasure that won’t leave you unsatisfied at the end.

Sita singing the blues

The mixed animation styles, all of which are gorgeously fun, are accompanied by a well written script and a musical twist sure to entertain. The highlight of this film are the scenes centered around Sita’s point of view.  They are set to the 1920’s jazz of Annette Hanshaw! Each scene makes for an interesting interpretation of both Annette Hanshaw’s music and the events of Sita’s life.

Rama is about to get some bad news..

I can’t ignore the other details that made this most enjoyable for me.  The three narrators who tell the story of Rama and Sita add a level of personable conversation to the film.  The narrators, which appear to set up each scene, are having a conversation with eachother about Ramayana and telling the story as a group. One narrator has most of the facts straight and keeps the group on topic, another is a bit whimsical and quick to blurt out slightly-correct (or sometimes incorrect) information which the other narrators gently correct, and the third is there for more fact-checking and leveraged as a ‘woman’s point of view’ at times.  The three are naturally discussing the events of Ramayana and unraveling the story as they go along. I equate it to the familiarity of discussing epic tales amongst friends in a way that helps to preserve story telling (and the story itself), having fun along the way as we recollect details of events.

The narrators (shadow puppets)

Included as a parallel story within Sita Sings the Blues is the story of Nina and Dave, which is a direct reflection on Nina Paley’s own life experiences and gives us a glimpse of the origins of this beautiful, artistic film piece.

Packed full of color, wit, great story telling, excellent music, and some additional surprises along the way which I haven’t mentioned, Sita Sings the Blues is worthy of your attention.