Nina Paley's "Two Geometric Smiling Circles Sing the Blues"

Chapter 3 Narrative Devices:

Metamorphosis: Something that transitions into another

Condensation: Taking a long story and making it short (condensing it)

Synecdoche: A part representing a whole

Symbolism: (similar to synecdoche) something that represents something greater (i.e. the American flag is a symbol of freedom)

Metaphor: A more recognizable, more obvious symbol

Fabrication: copying the real world, often through animation (Andy from Toy Story is a fabrication of a child)

Associative Relations: Relating things that weren't previously relatable

Sound: diegetic and non-diegetic noise that sets mood and pace of movie

Acting and Performance: movements of the character created by the animator

Choreography: motion used in animation

Penetration: the animator's ability to relay abstract ideas and deeper meanings through his animation

     Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues is a painfully long film that follows the life and troubles of two main characters through a few different story lines. While I personally did not enjoy the movie or my time watching it, it did have some noteworthy characteristics. The style, music, narrative, and intentional contrast were all unique in their delivery.
     For reasons that I assume were to keep us all from shooting ourselves from boredom, there were three different constantly switching styles in the film. It bounced back and forth between a colorful, geometric, cartoony-looking animation style that was used to tell the story of Sita. This style, in partnership with the narrative, was used most likely to tell that part of the story in a playful manner (including the violent war scenes in which sweet oblivious Sita was inside singing her blues with a smile on her face). There was a shaky, epilepsy-inducing comic strip style that was used to tell the story of the San Francisco based author. In using this traditionally American style of animation, she was able to show us that the author is in fact living in America. The third style and form of narrative is seen when the deities or gods (or just ancient looking old people) are trying their best to tell the story of Sita. This ancient puppet style of animation was used to show the antiquity and classicality of the story, as it is an integral part of the religion and society of the people native to this region. Either that or Nina Paley is using the most out dated form of animation in one last, almost quite successful, attempt to get us to stop watching her weird movie.
     The music choices in the film were mostly characteristic of the style it represented with the exception of the fact that Sita is singing 1920s American blues in the middle of ancient India. This is indicative of the intentional contrasts in the film.
     While this movie is tragically unentertaining, it does contribute to the progress of animation through it's developmental approach. Paley ties in experimental elements (i.e. the photographic looking shots mixed in with the hand drawn animation in San Francisco and New York) with certain aspects of traditional story telling (protagonist, antagonist, resolution, a narrative we can follow etc.) and is worth watching for for strictly educational purposes.