Seder-Masochism (2018) I don't know what Nina Paley does for money but I hope she gets a raise real soon. Because of her disdain for Copyright and refusal to pay for song rights, her work is distributed freely. Probably a big reason why she's only made two features in 10 years. I say this because I want to see more of her art, but also because I want to see her grow as an artist. SM has all the style of Sita and uses a similar framework of explaining religion, but it's more a collection of odds and ends.
Sita weaves the tale of Ramayana with a personal one by Paley, using three bickering narrators to tie it together. The only dialogue in SM comes from some friendly questions she asks her father. These moments have a similar casual humor, but they sometimes jerk the story to the next topic or, in the case of Paley deciding where to place the microphone, have nothing to do with the film at all. There are occasional moments where Paley points out this is history as written by "a series of patriarchal males," but her feminist mirror never transforms the material. It ends up a three-quarters baked idea.
With a lot less dialogue, that means a lot more songs and the soundtrack is often inspired. However, aside from some clever animation, these scenes (especially so many) start to feel like a music video art installation more than a movie. One of Sita's great pleasures is its ability to blend many unique styles into a true work of zany animated jazz art. This shows what magic alchemy that film was. Still fun because nobody makes films like Nina Paley, but if you don't know that already this will probably turn you off of her talent.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ - Good