Sita sings the blues is an animation film. Nina Paley produced the film. She is an American cartoonist. She started as a comic strip artist and later started filmmaking. Later, she moved to India in 2002 and came across the epic Ramayana and this was ironic as her marriage was ending (“Sita Sings Blues” 1). The movie also falls into the musical and romance genre.
The Ramayana is an Indian epic that tells the story of Prince Rama who was exiled from the palace upon the command of one of his queens Kaikeyi. She did that to ensure that her son became the sole heir and deny Rama any inheritance. Sita who is married to Rama accompanies her husband even though it is very dangerous. Unfortunately, Sita is kidnapped by King Ravan, the demon. Ravan, tells Sita to submit to him but she stays true to her husband and turns down the advances from Ravan. Sita waits for her husband to rescue her patiently. Rama comes to her rescue with the help of Hanuman, the monkey prince. Ravan is killed and Sita is reunited with her husband.
However, Rama doubts her fidelity to him during her days in bondage even though she tells him she had remained faithful to him. This causes her to be put on a test to prove her fidelity. In the test, she throws herself in a fire and the gods rescue her as they declare her fidelity. The test does not wipe away his doubt and behests his brother Lakshman to take Sita to a forest and leave her there. While in the forest, she delivers sons as she had become pregnant after reunification with Rama. She raises the sons to respect the father in his absentia. Finally, Rama learns of the sons and seeks reunites with Sita. Nonetheless, she is not satisfied with this reunion and she prays to the earth to swallow her as a sign of her fidelity. Mother earth honors her prayer despite pleas from Lakshman and Rama (Aharon 1).
Sita is based on the epic Ramayana and uses various animation styles. This includes 3D computer graphics, collage, and a beautiful visual palette with vivid colors (Scheck 1). The legends in the epic are represented by “shadow-puppet cutouts” (Scheib 1). Sita is “designed as a smooth, impossibly curvaceous assemblage of arcs and circle-shapes rendered in Flash animation” (Scheib 1). This makes it hard for her to move her body easily or even give various expressions. Nevertheless, this challenge is overcome using vivid colors in the background and different camera angles. In addition, the movie has a good soundtrack, which gives the movie life and makes watching it very interesting. This is because Nina retells the Indian epic in an interesting manner that will capture even the skeptics of animation.
The movie manages to marry the ancient Indian epic with modernity through animation. The story of Lord Rama and Sita captures the modern-day marriage scenarios. Just like Sita is frustrated in her marriage by the husband as he continually doubts her even after the test of fidelity she chooses to call it quits and asks mother earth for a hand. Today many people are also caught up in similar situations. They feel rejected and some end up living unhappy lives. Even if the film is a tragedy, it shows that some people are committed to marriage and will remain faithful no matter what happens.
Works Cited
Aharon, Daniel. Ramayana. 2004. Web.
Scheck, frank. Sita Sings the Blues- film review. 2009. Web.
Scheib, Ronnie. Sita Sings the Blues. 2009. Web.
Sita Sings Blues. 2010. Web.