Nina Paley’s
rendition of The Ramayana is astonishing. Sita Sings the Blues is a comedic satire in a
sense, but is very much enjoyable. The
introduction to the movie is pleasant, and I love how she introduced the main
characters in the beginning by showing their actions and interactions with each
other without the use of words. Paley
used various images of each character, which I thought was interesting because after
reading Narayan’s version of The Ramayana and researching images for each
assignment, I was able to identify the characters easily without question. I
did notice that Lakshamana did not play a role in the story as he did in
Narayan’s version of the epic, and Paley’s version was very much straight to
the point. Paley did not give a lot of background
information on the epic, but she gave enough for the audience to understand what
was happening.
Aside from
Rama and Sita, we have three characters that are narrating the story. These characters play an important role by recalling
what time period the epic took place and details that may have happened between
the characters by using gap-filling. What I like most about these characters is
that they brought up things that I questioned when I was reading The Ramayana.
Ravana is
seen as a foul and demented character, but not once did he force himself on
Sita. Sita was held in captivity for months at a time, and each time that he
visited her, he would only remind her that it would be him and her in the end. I will point out that he used his female
guards to torment her, but not once did he ever touch her. Ravana was philosophical and he showed piety
when he prayed, which are details that the narrators pointed out that readers
often look over.
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