Part B of the film was a little shorter but equally excellent
content-wise. Again, I loved this film—I would watch it again and will watch it
again, and recruit whoever will let me to watch it with me. Let me just say
before I start to break it down that I figured out what the visuals remind me
of—there is a short by Felix Colgrave whose animation style very much reminds
me of the puppet-bubble characters we see in “Sita Sings the Blues” that have
the sort of paper-doll joints. His short is called “The Elephant’s Garden,”
and it’s a video that was shared with me a long time ago. At around :44 you'll see what I mean. This is an arbitrary connection, but I'm sharing for the sake of realizing where I had seen this animation style before. Colgrove's short is the reason why Nina’s
film seemed so familiar to me straight away since the styles are similar what
with the weirdly shaped, colorful nature of their 2d characters with pivoting joints.
Just as awesome as multi-media type visuals of Nina’s
film is Sita’s story itself. Even though Nina’s cartoon representation didn’t have
many lines, I feel like super important to the film were both her “voice” as well as
the modern-ancient Indian woman who discusses the story with her two male
counterparts. I felt like we were meant to interpret Sita’s story in the
Ramayana through them primarily. In Nina’s case, her own experience with her
boyfriend, Dave, seemed to mirror the events of Sita and Rama’s here-and-there-again
relationship. The unrequited love and loyalty that Sita had for Rama in
following him wherever his duty takes him seems parallel to that of Nina and Dave,
who she follows when he is transferred to India for work. As the narrator's debate about Sita’s devotion to Rama, who is so indifferent to her sacrifices
and subjects her to mistreatment, we are set up as an audience to celebrate
Nina’s eventual departure from Dave to pursue her own passions on her own terms.
The whole message that is Sita singing the blues, a musical genre born of the enslaved Africans in the 19th century, speaks volumes about the message of “freedom.” Sita
sings “if you want the rainbow, you must have the rain,” a quite submissive
stance to take in the face of, in her case, being in a metaphorical prison confined by the sexism and gender stereotypes of (what did they
determine it was?) the 14th century? Wow, the undercurrent of
feminist tones throughout this film is in some ways so obvious and in others
so understated! What. A. Film. That’s all I can say.
Bibliography:
Author: Nina Paley
Title: Sita Sings the Blues
Year: 2008
Title: Sita Sings the Blues
Year: 2008
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