Director: Nina Paley
Year Released: 2008
Rating: 2.5
DIY cinematherapy: director/animator Paley goes through a breakup so catastrophic that the only way she can explain it is by comparing it to Indian mythology. It certainly doesn't hurt for style, although it is overloaded - there are four distinctive levels (and four distinctive animation styles to make for easy differentiation) and Paley flips between them incessantly: the main storyline is about Paley and her significant other who leaves to India and breaks up with her via e-mail (cold!), there's a narration level where three people discuss the Sita narrative from the Ramayan (about a woman kidnapped by a demon, rescued by her lover and then rejected by that same lover for being 'impure'), there's the Sita narrative played out 'normally' and then there's a 'music video' level where Paley has the Sita character lip-sync songs from late singer Annette Hanshaw (it looks like Betty Boop crossed with Homestar Runner). It's colorful and cute - and a labor of love - though as a clever as the music video portions are, all the songs are about the same exact thing ("I love him, he doesn't love me, woe is me"). Men: we are such bastards.
