LogFAQs > #975038734

29. Sita Sings the Blues

Evillord: 12
Johnbobb: 21
Mythiot: 21
Red: 21
Ermine: 25
Inviso: 26
Plasma: 29
Karo: 30
Suprak: 30

Total: 215

Evillord: Animator Nina Paley contrasts her own breakup with her husband against the story of the Ramayana. There is definitely some cringe to be had in watching a white American in 2008 make the profound observation that a religious myth from a completely different culture, written thousands of years ago, doesn't conform to her personal beliefs about gender. On the whole though, I thought the film was fun to watch. It experiments with quite a few different low-budget animation styles and often plays around with just how sparse its animation is, using musical timing to accompanying jazz songs from the 20s. Sometimes it made me laugh just through the visuals, and the unscripted scenes where three "shadow puppets" discuss their differing memories and interpretations of the story are fun and chill. Its strengths wear out as the film draws toward the end, you've already seen all the different animation styles a few times, and the Annette Hanshaw recordings start to feel kind of obligatory since they retell events already covered by the other styles and start to happen really often. I like the idea of Nina juxtaposing her small personal story against a world-recognized religious epic, but the modern day narrative ends up feeling too under-developed to really let the viewer feel with Nina, because the sections that deal with her story are few, short, and far between.

Johnbobb: Sita is one of the most interesting films on this list, largely because it is so drastically different from anything else. There's a lot to criticize about it, not the least of which is the idea of a white woman making an entire movie to compare herself to a Hindu goddess, but it's nothing if not ambitious. Special note: I still really don't know how to fully separate the art from the artist (particularly in cases like this) but I tried to watch this as objectively as possible. That being said, 100% fuck Nina Paley and everything she stands for.

Mythiot: *no writeup submitted*

Red: Meet Sita, the character with undying devotion to her husband that will spend her entire life never learning that hes a fucking asshole. I'm not sure what intent they were going for here, there isn't a whole lot of messaging here other than "Sita is devoted stupidly and then gets eaten to prove what everyone should have been able to see already" but that is fine I guess. It is pretty horrible, interesting in a horrible way, but mostly horrible.

Ermine: The only slightly interesting thing about this film is when the three people are talking about Sita and the story itself. There are a few funny bits there and the dialog is fun. Maybe I have this too low because it's honestly not too offensive, but at the same time god I was bored out of my mind. It doesn't help either that I really didn't like any of the songs, that style really just isn't for me, and I didn't enjoy the art style either.
Also, I felt like the plot with the wife and the guy was awful and unneeded. It felt completely out of place and I hated it. Disgusting art style for these segments and it served zero purpose. I really don't get what they were going for here and it did nothing but drag this film down.

Inviso: This wasnt exactly my cup of tea. I dont know if the animation style (well, several of them) were just off-putting, or maybe the visuals described in the folklore lent themselves to being off-putting, but this just wasnt an entirely fun watch for me. Ill say in its favor, I appreciate the fact that the movie does a solid job of telling a mythological story for a culture that Im not familiar with. While I think they didnt need four different framing devices (and four different animation styles to accompany them all), I think the explanatory sections kept things simple for a western audience, and the stylistic choice of tying the story to bluesy jazz was well-executed. I dont know if the interstitial scenes added much in regards to these two, as they were more straight-forward narrative, which really added to a sort of choppiness to the movies plot. Also, the poorly-animated modern-day story? Wasnt needed. Not at all. You couldve cut that and lost nothing from the film, in my opinion. So yeah, this was an okay plot, but just not entirely for me. Also, it didnt need an intermission break. Its less than 90 minutes for fucks sake.

Plasma: I can appreciate what the writer was trying to do here. Juxtaposing the goddess story of tragic romance with a contemporary story of tragic romance isnt a bad idea, but I hate the execution here. Too much wacky commentary, too many obnoxious songs, and too many intermissions (one is too manyand in a <90-minute movie? Cmon.).

Karo: Ok, so this is where someone thought a jukebox musical about the Hindu Ramayana with vintage American music was a good idea, and I hope they can find help for their mental illness.
So the main story sections are narrated by a trio of Hindu gods or whatever that can barely even remember their own religion, and every line that comes out of their mouths makes me want to punch something. Stuck in between these are scenes where Sita randomly sings songs from this white American girl from the 1920s, and also a bunch of stuff about the director venting about her love life which is supposed be analogous with the story of Sita but in reality there are really no parallels other then both of them having husbands that didn't pay them enough attention. It has this weird pseudo-feminist message that is basically just hey did you know old religious stories are just so sexist? Ha-HA! Well, gee no shit Sherlock, they are over 2000 years old.
There is just this sense of mean-spiritedness that permeates the whole movie as the director mocks a religion that has no connection to her culture or upbringing just for shits and giggles, and spews passive-aggressive hatred towards the whole male gender just because her relationship ended with her getting dumped (this may or may not have had something to do with her advocating for the genocide of the entire human race, but I digress).
The songs in the film are okay, and will certainly be enjoyed by those who like old-timey music, but the informational parts of the movie are presented in a way that is boring as a textbook and the plot is not only as thin as a Mario game, but pretty much IS just a Mario game. Like seriously, just imagine all the characters as their Mario universe analogues and you wont be able to unsee it.
But the real problem lies with the animation, which is so cheap and half-assed that it makes South Park look like the Disney Renaissance. Everyone is an awkward cardboard puppet with jerky cycling movements that are repeatedly copy pasted throughout the film, sometimes even multiple times on the same screen. Mind you, and that is when the characters even move AT ALL. Because sometimes everyone just stands around with only their mouths and eyes moving like Chargeman Ken or that old Spider-Man cartoon.
What uniqueness the style has gets old by the time Sita is done with her first song, and nothing really changes for the rest of the film save for a small scene a little over halfway through where some very interesting things were going on visually. But a mere 3 minutes is not enough to counteract an hour of dull repetitive dreck that often feels like someone tried to submit some of Weebl's meme Flash animations to a film festival as a joke and it accidentally got accepted.
There is nothing to sing the praises of here, only an extremely pretentious art film with a little musical appropriation and a lot of cultural appropriation.

Suprak: *no writeup submitted*