This year Sita Sings The Blues comes to
the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema - www.wfac.ca/ -


Sita Sings The Blues Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues is a stunning movie, a heartbreakingly funny account of "the greatest break-up story ever told." Animated over a period of 5 years on Paley's laptop Sita, much like Ari Folman's Waltz With Bashir, is a brilliant repudiation of the notion that one needs big bucks in order to make a great animated film. It juxtaposes the account of a crumbling marriage against events in The Ramayana, an ancient Indian epic. Mixing 1920's jazz with animation influenced by both India and Indonesia, it tells an absorbing story of "ancient tragedy and modern comedy." Sita Sings the Blues: Modern Heartbreak Versus Ancient Tragedy There are three major story components to Sita Sings the Blues. The first features a modern woman (named Nina, hint, hint) who slowly realizes that her marriage is crumbling after her husband gets a job in India. However, what could have become an unbearable pity party is leavened by Paley's trenchant wit, aimed as much at as it is at her former husband. Paralleling the modern heart-break tale is a feminized retelling of The Ramayana, featuring Sita's disintegrating relationship with her husband Prince Rama. Their marriage is initially idyllic, despite the fact that a spiteful step-mother convinced the king to banish his eldest son to the forest. However, the demon king Ravana, enflamed by tales of Sita's beauty, kidnaps her, taking her to his island kingdom of Lanka and demanding she become his wife on pain of death. Sita refuses him, believing that her husband will rescue her. Prince Rama, aided by the monkey god Hanuman and his simian army, eventually invades Lanka and rescues Sita, killing Ravana in the process. However, Rama refuses to believe that Sita remained faithful to him during her captivity, and forces her to undergo a trial by fire. Sita throws herself onto the flames, only to be rescued by the gods who proclaim her fidelity.

More can be found at www.wfac.ca/films/3