In her comic book work from some fifteen years ago, Nina Paley spoofed the trend towards "confessional" autobiographical comics such as those done by people like Julie Doucet and Joe Matt. Drawing in a goofy, bigfoot-cartoonist style, Paley complained that she hadn't enjoyed enough unhealthy, grotesquely unstable life experiences to compete with the real trailblazers in that field. Sita Sings the Blues, Paley's first animated feature, shows that time has helped her catch up a little in the miserable-experience department, and it also shows an artist who's blossomed a bit in the face of the possibilities offered by moviemaking. It also shows that Paley has found a way to be confessional without being exhibitionist or soppy.
The center of the movie is taken from part of the Sanskrit epic The Ramayana, dealing with Rama and his wife, the goddess Sita, who maintains her devotion to him even as he repeatedly seeks out reasons to doubt her chastity and cast her away. (In response to this treatment, Sita tends to express her regret over having not killed herself earlier before others had suffered on her behalf.) The film happily juggles a fun-house buffet of styles. Parts of it are narrated by a trio of shadow puppets with Indian voices--provided by Aseem Chhabra, Bhavana Nagulapally, and Manish Acharya--who relate the story in a conversational, sometimes argumentative way that sounds as if they were drawing on their memories of having heard it as children and haven't been allowed to consult Wikipedia. It's also depicted on-screen through brightly colored animation that suggests an Eastern version of Terry Gilliams' cut-out world-classics work with Monty Python. There are even several lively musical numbers, with Sita's singing voice provided by Annette Hanshaw, a 1920s vocalist whose old records are used on the soundtrack. All this is intercut with the bare bones of the story from Paley's own life that got her thinking about this story: how her husband got a job in India; how he persuaded her to sublet their San Francisco apartment, complete with cat, and join him after his contract was extended; and how he waited until she had gone to New York on business to break up with her by e-mail. Sita is funny and eye-popping and never bogs down. It might also double as a great introduction for kids to the Eastern canon, assuming you don't mind your kids asking you to explain the joke about the mile-high club.