Last year's Persepolis was an indication of the direction hand painted animation is taking: personal, ideosyncratic visions. That theme is restated in this year's offering, "Sita Sings the Blues." "Sita" is a retelling of the ancient Indian epic, the Ramayana, from Sita's point of view.
It is lively and quick. It is sad, sarcastic and sassy. It is at once epic and intimate. The art is often inventive and its energy is infectious. The movie also offers a poke in the eye to Bollywood convention. Anyone who has sat through a Bollywood movie is familiar with the intermission. This movie has a 2 minute intermission that is quite funny. Ravana carrying and drinking several sodas at once while waiting for Ram to come out of the bathroom is priceless. And the occasional commentary on the part of the three "puppets" is often as amusing as it is enlightening.
But the movie is also about the pain of loss, the end of a love story, and it is this that connects the eternal of the Ramayana to the modern day breakup story that provides its frame. The story is told through a wonderful array of art forms, each touching on a different aspect of the story, which includes traditional Indian art forms, but clearly inspired by manga forms, as well as a very vigourous line drawing style.
Sita Sings the Blues is more profound than it's breezy nature implies. It offers a wonderful view of the future of handpainted animation while addressing eternal themes for modern audiences. Sita is well worth the effort to find and see in the theater.
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