3 out of 5

Directed by: Nina Paley

Essentially a break-up-and-recovery tale as told and re-told through different cultural lenses, ‘Sita Sings the Blues’ is a bit over-stuffed with content at its 82-minute runtime, director/writer/nigh-everythinger Nina Paley obviously keyed on some great creative ideas that she couldn’t allow herself to pare away from her very personal film.  However, the charm and humor and intelligence of the composition, as well as the simple miracle of how well the different layers combine easily carry a viewer’s attention all the way through, even once the repetitive structure makes it pretty obvious how part A will reflect in B and C.

On one level, animated in squiggle-vision, we have Paley’s life with her husband, interrupted by hubbie’s move to India for a work project.  The stay is for longer than intended and the relationship deteriorates, Paley distraught at how easily it all crumbles but managing to find solace in…

The tale of the Ramayana, narrated to us by three traditional shadow puppets, voiced by friends of Paley whose improvised conversation of the story – correcting each other’s mistakes, reviewing the variations – lends a natural and joyous touch to the painted figures of the Ramayana principles, animated as mostly static painted figures, shushed across similarly static backgrounds.  We hear about Sita and Rama, the former serving as a parallel for Paley’s perhaps misguided reverence for her husband (Rama’s proxy), and how this gets mixed with either a love conquers all or love ruins all interpretation depending on who’s telling the tale.

This thirdly lends us vector graphics sections of the Ramayana, set to the music of 30s jazz singer Annette Hanshaw, whose songs either idealize relationships or lament their burdens as appropriate, thus giving us an interesting cross-era / cross-cultural take on, you know, the kind of shit that happens and will continue to happen.

Which is where ‘Sita’ over-states and over-stays its welcome a bit, as the emotional journey is somewhat belabored by the repeated variations.  Although Hanshaw’s segments are a great addition to the animation, Paley’s discovery of the artist along with the Ramayana is a neat parallel but feels slightly at odds with the overall composition of the film, and could maybe have scored the squiggle-vision moments or been used as book-ends to tighten up the telling, which could have, in turn, allowed more room for Paley to explore her journey (as her story is rather stunted compared to the Ramayana sections).  But this is perhaps applying to much of a ‘film’ expectation on a project that more rightly wants to express a feeling or feelings, and ‘Sita’ does that immensely cleverly and well while doing us the favor of potentially exposing us to some bits of the world outside of our comfort zone.

Having seen the movie with someone much more familiar with the animation process than myself, I’ve come to understand that there’s much credit due to Paley for putting this project together mostly by herself.  The passion of the craftsmanship is definitely apparent, regardless of whether or not the film’s themes speak to you.