Reading Diary B: Sita Sings the Blues

Bhavana explaining Rama's thoughts on Sita: Source; Nina Paley's Blog

The second half of the film was really as good as the first. It opens with Nina receiving the dreaded email from her husband that ends their marriage. I think this was pretty clearly foreshadowed within the film, and it's in all of the descriptions of the film so this didn't come as a big surprise. It does also work really well as a modern day comparison to how Rama treats Sita by exiling her to the forest. The animation in the second half was still very good, especially the interpretive dance number ( I don't know how else to describe it!)  which was really breathtaking. The second half seemed very song heavy- it seemed like a new song was being sung every 2 or 3 minutes. I suppose this makes sense when there is so much of the story to spread out over 40 minutes.

The narrators take a much more active role in this section. They go from just recalling and retelling the events to actually commenting on Rama's actions and why Sita reacts the way she does, specifically what might motivate her to stay with Rama. The narrating puppets continued to be my favorite part with their bickering, and I thought it was a really nice touch how Nina had them framed on her wall in the final scene in her apartment. The story did a really good job of going full circle in that it explained what drove Nina to create the film and how she was inspired. All in all, I'm really glad I decided to watch the movie this week because it was such a new and different way of engaging with the material, and I think it shows a lot of the issues inherent to the character of Rama that might get glossed over in the texts.