I missed Sita Sings the Blues when it opened the San Francisco International Animation Festival late last year, but fortunately for me and you and everyone we know director/writer/animator Nina Paley has placed the entirety of her wonderful film online. So last night I was able to watch it at home with the kitties, no pre-planning required. Sita retells the story of the Ramayana from a number of different perspectives and utilizing at least four different distinct animation styles, blithely jumping from present to ancient past and back again. The cleverest sequences are the ones in which Paley uses old recordings by flapper-era jazz vocalist Annette Hanshaw to stand in for Sita's voice as she laments the difficulties of her relationship with Rama, and there were certainly a lot of difficulties. I also loved the sections that are narrated by a trio of Indian shadow puppets whose unscripted, modern commentary on the more puzzling parts of the classic tale is downright hilarious. Into all of this Paley deftly folds the story of how her own marriage dissolved, and I have to think that making Sita must have been vastly therapeutic for her. I know it did my own heart good.