Reading Notes: Sita Sings the Blues, Part A

Hello Vagabuddies,
Today I am reviewing the first half of the the beautiful movie Sita Sings the Blues. I watched it with two other students from our class (and a past student who just wanted to rewatch the movie!), and it was such a fun movie. I really enjoyed the different art styles that were used for different purposes throughout the movie. First, there was the art style of a chalk-style rough animation on flashing cut-out real-world images such as hearts or the sun. Then, there was the art style of the characters talking to each other, which was just a simple animation, and this was separate from the animation during the songs, which was a very distinct cartoon-style animation that over-emphasized the character's body types such as Sita's very very skinny waist and Rama's Dorito chip body. Then there was the style of animation during the narrator's parts that had more realistic drawings but a choppier style of animation. Finally, running parallel to the whole story of the Ramayana, there was the drawn cartoon on real backgrounds animation for the "real life" story between Dave and Nina. This constant switching between animation styles sometimes made the story a little difficult to follow and feel a little disjointed, but overall it kept the film interesting and fast-paced.

Onto more things I liked about this half of the film specifically, the interaction between the narrators among themselves was hilarious! It felt like an episode of Drunk History, and they disagreements and confusion parallels what a first-time reader of the Ramayana feels during their read-through. I especially liked it when the narrators discussed why Sita never escaped with Hanuman, something I had also wondered. The female narrator explained (and I agreed with her) that Sita wanted Rama to save her and prove himself to the world by defeating the evil king Ravana. Other things like the comedic timing of the camera panning to Ravana every time Sita explained her devotion to Rama was hilarious and a definite laugh-out-loud moment!

Ravana's Shock at Sita's devotion: Sita Sings the Blues

In the extra reading due this week, I will discuss what I thought of the songs too (spoiler, I loved them)!

Vaga-Buon Voyage!


Nina Paley. "Sita Sings the Blues." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzTg7YXuy34&feature=emb_logo