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Best movie of this year hands down!

Very well executed

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Whoa. Finally some fresh animation. Most of the animated films I've seen are either Dreamworks/Disney CGI style, or hand drawn Ghibli style. Finally I've seen something different. And to the more exigent public, it does not present a different style but four of them. It is even more astonishing that each time line has its own style. And even though each time line is animated differently, with different characters and intentions, the story seems to repeat itself, regardless if we are in ancient India, Annette Hanshaw's 1940s, or our actual age.The actual content is precious as well. Indian mythology was a complete new subject, and Nina explains it so swiftly and vividly. She mentions several important names and places, but in such a way that you'll never get confused with the whole new jargon. Now I'm craving for more details.Finally, the soundtrack is wonderful. Hanshaw's delivery is on point with every important event. Nina manages to clash several worlds in less than 90 minutes and in the end, she shares you some of her intimate mom

This is one of the strangest animated movies I've ever seen. It's mostly because it doesn't follow the same animation style. It was weird seeing these puppets talk about the story and then seeing it told in three different kinds of artwork. There was this fourth animation style about this woman and her boyfriend which had nothing to do with the main story. The actual Ramayana is mentioned only once in this part. With that being said, I really did enjoy this movie. It's always great to learn more about Hindu mythology.I really have to say that the Ramayana anime is a better movie. The animation is better and for me and it tells the story in a more interesting manner. The dialogue kind of reminded me of "Creature Comforts". I mean, it sounded like these were snippets taken from people who were interviewed on the streets. Well, it was really only the puppets that sounded like that. The best animation style was probably the one where Sita was actually singing.This may be the shortest movie I've ever seen that had an intermission. I think this may have been done in cheek seeing as how we saw the animated characters throughout it. I've never seen a countdown before. That should be used in more movies. I'm glad to be more familiar with Hinduism and this was a very interesting experience. It did come off as too weird sometimes and hard to follow, but it's still worth watching the whole way through. Well like I said, it isn't long. ***

Nina Paley spent four years making the film on her own computer, and is credited the film's director, writer, producer, editor and animator. The result of her labor is a strange, confounding, colorful, daffy and sometimes hilarious imagining of the legendary Indian folk tale of "The Ramayana." In it, Ramayana (referred in this film simply as "Rama") is a blue-skinned Indian prince who dumps his wife when he suspects that she committed adultery while she was in the clutches of the creature who kidnapped her. The story is narrated by three wisecracking shadow puppets who discuss the story in an effort to orient themselves – and us – on the progress of a story that is probably far more complicated than it needs to be. Meanwhile, in another parallel story, Paley tells her own autobiographical journey of how her husband dumped her and left her with a broken heart that ultimately resulted in her creating Sita Sings the Blues. The main story, though, involves Rama being forced into exile by his father, at the request of his wicked stepmother who wastes no tears on her blue-skinned stepson. She tells him – with an Indian accent – "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out." Rama is married to the beautiful Sita, and asks her not to join him in his exile, but Sita is determined that a woman's place is next to her husband. She sings the rapturous joy of being with Rama through Hanshaw's evocative jazzy tune "Here We Are" as the two lovers spent time playing hide and seek. Her joy isn't even deterred when Rama kills a group of blue demons who come out of the woods to do harm to the couple. It is the songs that evoke the most magical moments of Sita Sings the Blues. Sita (pronounced "See-tah"), who looks like a Middle Eastern version of Betty Boop, sings Hanshaw's songs with a sexy, laid-back style and always punctuates the numbers with a happy "That's all" (which was Hanshaw's trademark). All of the songs speak to the situation at hand, and every time Sita opens her mouth to sing, it brings a smile to our faces. Even when she's sad, the film's visuals still evoke a jolly tone. Paley allows the film's visual palette to compliment what is happening to Sita during these musical interludes: When she sings "Am I Blue?" she literally turns blue. When she sings "Lover Come Back to Me", it is accompanied by repeated scenes of her lover dropping her. Sita maintains her loyalty to Rama, but trouble is afoot when an evil ten-headed king named Ravana is informed by his sister Surphanaka (sporting a nasty set of fangs) that Rama has killed his prized flock of blue demons, so he plots to get revenge by kidnapping Sita. Spurring Ravana on to the idea of a kidnapping, Surphanaka describes Sita this way: "She is the most beautiful woman in the world. Her skin is fair like the lotus blossom. Her eyes are like lotus pools. Her hands are like… from… lotuses. Her breasts like… BIG… ROUND… FIRM… JUICY… LOTUSES." Ravana asks his underling to transform himself into a golden deer to distract Rama while he kidnaps Sita. Blissfully unaware of the kidnapping plot, Sita is snatched right out of her house while in the midst of singing of her devotion to Rama with "What Wouldn't I Do for that Man", a song that eventually proves prophetic. Anguished over the disappearance of his beloved Sita, Rama plots to rescue her with the help of the monkey warrior Hanuman who – if I understood correctly – was apparently created by the gods just for that purpose. Sita, meanwhile receives a threat from Ravana that if she doesn't agree to marry him, that his blue demons will cut her to ribbons. Hanuman shows up to rescue Sita while she mournfully sings "Daddy Won't You Please Come Home." It is during this number (which includes Sita's own claranet solo) that Hanuman proves to be an adept warrior as one of the blue demons sets his tail on fire and he, in turn, uses it set fire to Ravana's palace. He leaves Ravana's island and returns to tell Rama the whole story. Why Hanuman didn't just take Sita back with him is a question that the narrators debate. Rama and Hanuman amass a giant army of monkey warriors to return to Ravana's island and rescue Sita. The plan goes into effect as Sita happily sings "Who's That Knocking at My Door?" The blue demons are dispatched with ease and the ten-headed Ravana is decapitated over and over and over again. Sita is delighted to have her beloved come and rescue her, however he is thoughtless, suspicious and jealous. Rama tells her "You have lived in another man's house so you are unfit to be my wife. He cannot have kept you in his house for so long without touching you". Seeing Sita as damaged goods and cuts her loose. Sita is broken-hearted and sings of her sadness with the melancholy tune "Mean to Me". Sita Sings the Blues represents all the reasons that I love the movies. It is lively and fun, it tells a great story that is equal parts comedy, drama, romance, heartbreak, adventure, comeuppance, revenge, all mixed into a musical that is bouncy and fun. It tells a story that is universal in a way that we've never seen before, using various techniques and camera tricks to tickle us and treat us and allow us regard it with wonder. I like this movie a lot.

A very aptly titled movie, Sita sings the blues tells the story of Rama and Sita as found in the Ramayana with some 1920s blues, sung by Annette Hanshaw thrown in. Nina Paley created the film, as director, animator and producer, on her own on her personal computer, quite an achievement given the huge numbers of people and computers who work to create each Pixar or other major movie studio animation.The movie plays out as four distinct animations running concurrently. The story of Rama and Sita is most clearly played out in a Mughal miniature style which is interspersed with the Hanshaw songs. Sung by a 'Betty Boop" looking character, the musical segments are more vibrant and re tell the story visually whilst the song's develop and explain a little of the character's feelings. To explain and narrate the story Paley asked three Indian friends to discuss the Ramayana. Paley didn't give them any time to prepare, so the narrators speak purely from their memories, leading to disagreements over names and other facts, though all agree on the overall themes and tales. When the discussions are taking place the Narrators are represented by three distinct shadow puppets. The final strand to the movie, and the impetus behind the film's creation, shows the disintegration of Paley's real life relationship with her Husband in a grainy modern day New York. There are various parallels with the story of Rama and Sita, such as separation, and these are drawn out through the simultaneous development of the two stories.The songs are wonderful and the movie is a fair introduction to the Ramayana, although not entirely factually correct.