FIRST RUN, VANCITY THEATRE EXCLUSIVE

Alt-cartoonist Nina Paley's animated tale of love gone wrong cheekily mixes different styles of animation into a jazzy, eye-popping epic of flying monkeys, many-headed demons and love-weary women. Paley draws comparisons to the universality of heartbreak by pairing the story of her own breakup with that of the Goddess Sita, whose unceremonious dumpage is recounted in the Indian epic The Ramayana.

The ballad of Sita and her husband Rama, is helpfully narrated by three shadow puppets who aren't terribly clear on the details, but nonetheless provide a Greek chorus of sorts for the action, which comes hot and heavy. While some of the finer plot points may get lost, the heart of the story remains unchanged. Sita's beauty earns her the lust of the demon king of Lanka, who spirits her away to his Island stronghold. But even after her husband battles untold hordes to get her back, things didn't quite work out. Oh, relationships...

The pure glorious power of the animated image is given full rein here as Paley pulls out all the stops. Busby Berkley-like numbers, punctuated by the Betty Boop stylings of 1920s chanteuse Annette Hanshaw, rain down in gorgeous hues of blue, gold and hot pink.

Nina Paley is a longtime veteran of syndicated comic strips, creating "Fluff" (Universal Press Syndicate), "The Hots" (King Features), and her own alternative weekly "Nina's Adventures." In 1998 she began making independent animated festival films, including the controversial yet popular environmental short, "The Stork." In 2002 Nina followed her then-husband to Trivandrum, India, where she read her first Ramayana. This inspired her first feature, Sita Sings the Blues, which she animated and produced single-handedly over the course of 5 years on a home computer. Nina teaches at Parsons School of Design in Manhattan and is a 2006 Guggenheim Fellow.