Review of Sita Sings the Blues (2008) by Edgar C — 15 Jul 2013

I am sorry, Nina Paley, but you're arrogant.

Predominantly an exercise in style, Sita Sings the Blues is, at the end of the day, a mockery towards a fruitful Indian tale about gender equality and justice. Combining animation styles with immature purposes of speculation and commentary biased towards the perspective of women rather than discussing the societal and cultural backgrounds surrounding the epic Indian story, the film constantly shifts from a randomly placed discussion about the events of the story as an improvised "documentary" interview to a biographical portrait of Nina regarding her relationship with her husband, and uses the entire animated feature as a vehicle for not only empathizing with Sita, but also comparing her situation with her own! Not only that is uncalled for, but the contemporary setting was a terrible decision of a story filler that made no worthy contribution to the "discussion" about the epic whatsoever.

Yet, I cannot stop recommending the film. Nina Paley just wasted a good arsenal of creative personal potential because it fell into the wrong material. This film should not exist. It should exist differently. The lack of financial means along with some interesting animation sequences and solid ideas of style transitions signal positive hope for a talented female artist in a world ruled by men mentality. Or at least that's what she would state, which would be a true biased statement. From a visual and musical perspective, Sita Sings the Blues is a technical success.

Sita is Annette Hanshaw. Why? Because Nina implied that the story of Sita has been present in contemporary story, and the musical inspiration she found was Hanshaw. The film would not work the same way without her, but that's the problem, you see? Hanshaw's spirit should have been revived in an entirely different story, paying proper respect to the sacred ancient tales and using her strong pro-women position through alternative means, no matter if she used in the film open references to maybe the greatest animation film of all times, The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926).

But she used those references. More than once.

66/100.