Reading Dairy A: Sita Sings the Blues

Movie Poster; Source: flickr

For this week's reading, I decided to watch the movie Sita Sings the Blues. I thought the movie would be a nice change of pace from reading the epics, and it was actually really engaging. There are two stories going on at the same time, maybe three, depending on how you look at it. The first involves Nina and her boyfriend who gets a job in India, and the ups and the downs of their relationship. This parallels the story of Sita and Rama; Rama is exiled to the forest and Sita follows suit. The story of Rama is related to us by 3 intermediary characters, portrayed as Indians who are trying to recall the story from heart. This adds a lot of comedy as the three can't always recall the details exactly, and often they bicker over the events of the tale. The third element of the movie is the blues songs that Sita sings between major story segments. These songs usually reflect her emotions regarding the goings on of the story and fit surprisingly well with the rest of the film.

Engaging with a movie is much different than engaging with a text. The animations styles are varied and help make each part of the story feel unique. The voices and songs are really well done and do give a great insight into the emotions of Sita at each point in the story. I'm really looking forward to finishing the second half of the film and seeing how the end compares with the text version.