While I still prefer "Les Triplettes de Belleville" for absolutely off-the-wall animated fun, this film rates high in the same nuttiness-meets-cultural-erudition category. The use of (mainly) Gus Kahn's early standards set against the Ramayana - and, then, just enough to create some counterpoint, the disintegration of a relationship - stretches the viewer's mind out of set categories, and makes for a lot of wit en route. The fact that the Indians discussing the epic make a fair number of factual mistakes (at once corrected) is amusing in itself - kind of like listening to nominal Christians confuse incidents from the New Testament. There's a gentle but clear thread of feminist indignation implied in the satire along the way. And many of the images are simply beautiful. - I do have to wonder, though, how this would (will?) be accepted in India, where, as the credits note, one satirical work on the Ramayana is already banned.
Review of Sita Sings the Blues
