Sita Sings the Blues

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.