Reading Notes: Sita Sings the Blues: Part B

The break-up sequence has such beautiful, breathtaking collage art. So much work went into it and it's so awesome of Nina Paley to allow public access.

The brief Laundromat background was really fun- perhaps an ordinary place like a Laundromat or a McDonalds or something would be fun to write in (McDonalds are everywhere- I'm sure the jungles of Ancient India had them too).

Animated pregnant Sita is so cute.

Post-breakup Nina is an excellent parallel for devastated post-exiled Sita.

Sita's jazz number with the peacocks where she sings about being blue is so applicable and innovative in the context of the story. The movie poster I selected for this post's accompanying image describes the Ramayana as "The Greatest Break-up Story Ever Told", and I love how this is dramatized throughout the sequence. 

"Duty first, Sita last". The lyrics and accompanying music to Sita's boys' singing of the Ramayana is ingenious, and shows how fun it could be to write the events of the epic poem into a different, more concise poem for comic relief. 

Again, I'm just digging how well the jazz/blues numbers fit in the story. 

I want to know more about the orange-robed, beard-clad side character with the violin! 

Mother Earth reappears from the very beginning, her presence-though wordless- ties in a small sense of continuity from start to finish, and the slo-mo into a brief battle scene pause and recap are all very effective story devices. In the next action scene I write I may take from this and incorporate a pause where the positions of every character are briefly recapped- this both updates the reader on events and increases the sense of dramatic tension.

Whoa glad Rama could muster a single tear for the woman he needlessly scorned for years and years.

HECK YES he's rubbing her feet now I DIG IT.

"Everything else, unless otherwise specified: Nina Paley". Beautiful. The humor in this film was so top-notch. I loved the modern take on the Ramayana and seeing Nina's story- especially the end connection that she, the inside character, would go on in her narrative to make the movie being watched. Fun!

Image Info: Movie Poster for Sita Sings the Blues.
Source: Link.

Bibliography:
Paley, Nina. Sita Sings the Blues. 2008. Link.