Sita Sings the Blues
Composite Score: 85.63
Starring: Aseem Chhabra, Bhavana Nagulapally, Manish Acharya, Reena Shah, Sanjiv Jhaveri, Debargo Sanyal, Deepti Gupta, and Nina Paley
Director: Nina Paley
Writer: Nina Paley
Genres: Animation, Comedy, Fantasy, Musical, Romance
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Box Office: $12,619 worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Sita Sings the Blues is Nina Paley’s animated adaptation of the Hindu epic Ramayana that parallels the experiences of the fictional character Sita with those of the filmmaker in her own romantic life. The film features four distinct arcs and art styles that interplay with each other – the actual Ramayana story, which is animated in the style of Rajput painting, a podcast-like discussion on the backstory and narration of the Ramayana with three traditional shadow puppets, musical scenes from the Ramayana set to the music of Annette Henshaw, which utilize vector graphic animation, and the Squigglevision-animated modern story of Nina and her significant other. The film was produced almost entirely by Paley and exists in most places as a free-to-watch film due to copyright issues, but that hasn’t held it back from becoming a fairly universal hit with those who have seen it, celebrating its fun blend of animations and artfully modern take on the Ramayana.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
While everything about this film’s production cycle and inception and even execution feels like something worth celebrating, I just could not ever find myself fully invested in it. I feel like the animation is really good, but the two “parallel” stories exist so far from each other in terms of their actual occurrences within the film that I couldn’t fully appreciate the allegory that Paley was attempting to paint. If we had Nina’s story more consistently interspersed within that of the Ramayana with just a few more details tying us to her character, I think the film is far better than it currently is. Its ideas feel right, and it even seems to be headed in the right direction in pursuit of those ideas, but Nina’s story and, to a lesser extent, the musical moments just feel like footnotes to a forty-five-minute retelling of the Ramayana, which is by far the best part of the film.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
While the musical and present-day portions didn’t necessarily do it for me, I do think that the portions of the film about the Ramayana itself work really well. The bit with the shadow puppet animators keeps the whole thing very light while providing an insane amount of context, backstory, and detail for a film whose entire runtime is less than an hour and twenty-five minutes. Do our narrators give us the entirety of the Ramayana in that time? No, but they give us enough to let anyone understand what’s unfolding onscreen without having to pause and look anything up, and when trying to engage a presumably Western audience with a historically Eastern tale, this can be a very effective method. Does every story need a trio of narrators talking over each other almost like a podcast? Not necessarily, but again, these three narrators (Aseem Chhabra, Bhavana Nagulapally, and Manish Acharya) do a fantastic job of keeping the whole thing moving and engaging from the jump. Likewise, the stylistic portrayal of the story in painting format provides a really fun and engaging introduction to the story that many audiences might not otherwise get. It’s also cool to see the feminist twist on the classic narrative, as Paley interprets the events in light of her own situation. Fresh looks at classic stories can be hit or miss, but in the case of this one, I think it’s a hit.
Paley’s blend of animation styles go a long way in keeping the film engaging, but it’s really the actual retelling of the Ramayana that give Sita Sings the Blues the edge that it needs to earn a place among the greats. Certain points of the film might fail to perfectly engage all audiences, but for those looking to familiarize themselves with this particular tale or who simply want to appreciate a wide range of animation styles all in the same film, this is an easy enough watch to warrant checking out. You can currently stream this film for free on Tubi if you’d like to check it out.
