Les triplettes de Belleville

This animated feature by Sylvain Chomet was seriously weird. The visuals were like no other movie I've seen and even now, weeks after I've seen it they still haunt my imagination. In structure the story is quite conventional – Madame Souza trains up her geeky grandson to be a top-line cyclist (a very French ambition) but while he is competing in the Tour de France he is abducted by criminals who remove him to `Belleville' on the other side of the Atlantic. M. Souza goes to find him and after many adventures…well, you know the rest. There's plenty of chasing about on Belleville's streets and freeways in very French looking vehicles that look like stretch limo versions of the immortal Citroen 2CV. Belleville itself is a curious amalgam of New York, Montreal and Paris, and seems to owe something to Fritz Lang's `Metropolis'.

The eponymous triplets are three former 30s singing stars now reduced to playing in cheap cafes, busking and eating frog's legs, of which Belleville seems to have an ample supply. They take M de Souza in and help her in her quest without any great benefit to themselves.

I did think it might help to appreciate this movie if you were French. There is virtually no dialogue (though plenty of singing) but there seem to be numerous references presumably satirical to various French national obsessions and preoccupations. What is the joke is not always clear to an outsider. Is there any significance in M Souza's originally being Portuguese? (She actually bears a close resemblance to the English cartoonist Giles's Grandma). Are top cyclist just nervy greyhounds with huge leg muscles? Do the French see themselves as svelte and Americans as all grossly obese? Are the French self-conscious about being typecast as frog-eaters? Are Citroen really planning a stretch limo version of the 2CV? I don't know, but then I don't need to.

Definitely different.

Yesterday evening a friend introduced me to this extraordinary piece of animation. After watching it I was left with the feeling that I'd just watched a film which communicated something to me, but I wasn't quite sure what that might be. For hours afterward I thought to myself, "Why did that film appeal to me so?" The story is simple and straightforward. The details are charming and nuanced. The rendering is a true tour-de-force. The one thing that caught my eye was the sheen of the water as Mme. Souza and Bruno are crossing the ocean in pursuit of her grandson. I can hardly believe that was animation. Then I noticed the play of the light on the water reflected against the hulls of the boats at dock in the harbor. My friend pointed out the skill of the graphic designers in maintaining the proper camera angles of the projected live film footage on the screen during the chase sequence.

The music is absolutely captivating. Everything from the opening dance-hall sequence to the extraordinary use of the Kyrie from Mozart's Mass in C Minor during the storm at sea and the entrance into the harbor of Belleville. Notice how the music builds in richness as the camera descends from the few spires at the beginning of the sequence to the dense mass at street level.

Remembering the details and how they relate to each other and the film as a whole keeps you thinking about the significance of the film's contents. For instance, I only now remember that the opening sequence was drawn in the archaic, fluid style of early cartoon animation (Steamboat Willy, Olive Oyl and Popeye) because, of course, it was depicting events which predated the time of the film proper. The style served a purpose, beyond being an end in itself.

For a long time after watching the film I remained puzzled about its appeal to me. I've seen a large number of animated feature films, but none have left me quite as reflective as did this one. I was less concerned with the meaning of the details. It is a cartoon, after all.

I continued to wonder about Madame Souza's expression. About how the creator was able to invest such meaning in those simple dark circles set behind thick lenses and the line of her mouth, which modulated between forthright resolve and a gentle satisfaction. Then it occurred to me. Beyond the larger outline of the story and the details in which it is couched, it tells us of the power of one person's love and concern for another. I suppose we all wish we could receive such unconditional love, and it makes us feel warm to think that such a thing could actually be. Even if only in a cartoon.

The film either will or will not appeal to you, depending on what it is you're looking for in an animated feature film. I watched it without expectations, and was left wondering, "Why does it resonate with me?" And you'll want to see it again.

This stranger-than-usual animation is an ornate, intriguing piece of work, with a unique visual style somewhat resembling certain English cartoonists' (Ronald Searle's, for example) but very remote indeed from either Disney or South Park or Japanese anime. There are times as you watch, especially at first, before the repetition and the overkill of intricate detail begin to pall, when the originality and visual richness clearly approach the sublime. The combination of computer and traditional hand animation methods, carried out at such a level of complexity that the film required five years to complete, is an unquestionable triumph. But you may very well be put off when you realize that overall Sylvain Chomet's first full-length animated film has no discernible point or message; that its central figures are mournful, ugly, and unfriendly; that there is little plot, virtually no dialogue, and that the void left thereby is filled with a great deal of annoying noise and repulsive imagery. The twittering visual machinery of wiggling, yapping, howling dogs, of awkward, caricatured creatures of all sorts endlessly in motion, turns into a series of nightmarish repetitions that can easily become as off-putting as they are wearying.

I wanted to like this movie. Its originality and adeptness as a work of animation remain impressive. It gives new meaning to the very word `animation': every scene is a study of the nature and arts of motion. There are observations whose keenness is unique. As cultural commentary it certainly provides much material for debate. The vision of France a half century ago is quaint and intriguing. But the mournfulness, the sadomasochistic undertones, and the meanness build over time; and when the triplets dined on plates and pots full of still squirming frogs, my sympathies checked out. The undercurrents of nastiness both in the personalities of the principals and the depiction of American culture do not leave an endearing impression.

The plot is simple and can be seen as little more than a rough framework on which to hang the intricate doodlings, the recreation of a grotesque nostalgic vision of postwar France, and the endless experiments with the very nature of animation, which are perhaps ultimately the film's real point. An old French granny, Madame Souza, whose walk clatters from a big orthopedic shoe, lives in a rickety house somewhere in Fifties Paris or its environs. She has in her care a large dog, Bruno, and a large, lean, boy, Champion, her orphaned grandson, who dreams of racing in the Tour de France. She herself ruthlessly supervises his training, which is shown in meticulous detail and includes, at home, the use of a variety of Rube Goldberg contraptions to feed and condition him after he has returned from his exhausting day on the roads. Champion grows up with grotesquely hypertrophied leg muscles and tiny upper body, and competes as planned in the Tour de France. But during the race he's kidnapped by sinister box-shaped gangsters and taken to the city of Belleville, over in the new world. Madame de Souza and Bruno set out in pursuit, crossing the sea in a boat, complete with dramatic storm. Once in Belleville, a blatantly anti-American vision of New York perhaps including elements of Montreal (the inhabitants and even the Statue of Liberty are grossly fat), old granny makes the acquaintance of a trio of eccentric and fleshy former women vaudeville singers (whom we've seen do their scat-singing act on an ancient TV broadcast) and these `Triplettes de Belleville' help Madame recapture Champion from the kidnappers. One writer has suggested the plot is an allegory of how Hollywood steals the best European talents and sucks them dry. If so, the theft is foiled this time.

No movie has ever shown the curious way big cumbersome dogs can manage to get up on a bed with somebody already lying in it. This trick is shown several times. It remains one of the keenest pieces of observation I've ever seen in an animation. The intricacy of detail of Champion's training process is hard to get out of one's head; the depiction of a grueling, relentless exercise routine is unforgettable. Others will like moments like the great storm at sea, though the effects used there seemed to me out of sync with the more linear style of the rest. A momentary TV appearance of what is obviously Glenn Gould intricately nattering away at some Bach keyboard fugue, no doubt beamed to France from the Canadian Broadcasting System, provided one of many delicious little period details during the film's first half. There are also cameos squeezed in by Django Reinhardt, Josephine Baker, and Fred Astaire (who is eaten up by one of his tap shoes). Likewise the visions of period Tour de France training crews and roadside fans are priceless. It's difficult to do justice to such an intricate effort. The devil and the wonder are both in the details. Despite the lack of dialogue as a central element and its replacement by incidental noise (as well as occasional jaunty jazz), a feature that links The Triplets with the comic films of Jacques Tati, there really is a lot of quick French at times, and I have the feeling that in omitting subtitles, the filmmakers or distributors have robbed Anglophone viewers of some of the richest details; that there's French stuff here we can never hope to grasp. For the devotee, this is definitely one for repeated viewings. There's a lot to take in -- if you've got the stomach for it. Once may be enough for many, but anybody interested in animation needs that once. Not suitable for young children or anyone easily weirded out.

Within the first five minutes of The Triplets of Belleville I knew I was about to see either one of the worst films of the year, or one of the best- writer/director Sylvain Chomet and art director/designer Evgnei Tomov have created a (animated) world in which they seem to be in love with every frame, every image, every musical note, and at first there is that sense that this is an off-putting style. But soon I realized that what Chomet and Tomov were doing was much like what Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali did with their classic Un Chien Andalou. The story is not incomprehensible because it's simple enough so that a child could follow along, and the strategy thus is to tell it with an artistic, intense, mad-cap, whatever you can think to call it, personalized view on the characters and the environments they get themselves into. That the film is from France adds a charm once the elements get skewed (the animators tackle the Tour de France, big cities, ocean-liners, singers, frogs, and the gangster underworld), and that it doesn't have- and doesn't need- subtitles to tell the story is another remarkable feat.

As the film reached into the last act, I then realized two things- 1) this is one of those films, like Un Chien Andalou and The Wall (the great Gerald Scarfe's influence was one that I guessed, though there's probably more I didn't catch on), that won't appeal to everyone. Those expecting a cute French animated film can expect that, however a movie-goer needs to have an open mind to the material, and that the term "cute" would be taken for granted while being immersed in this film. 2) since the film is made like an original, without much compromise to where the story has to be headed or which characters do and say what, at the least The Triplets of Belleville works superbly to create an overwhelming state of mind for the viewer. Personally, I get exhilarated watching a movie where I don't even WANT to expect where the story is headed. Throughout most of the 80 minutes I felt an un-canny faith in the filmmakers that their oddball, free-wheeling visions wouldn't go up in smoke. And by the end I left wanting more for some reason or another. Like I said, some might be turned sour by the execution of the material, yet for others the fantasy-like nature of The Triplets of Belleville should make for an interesting night-out. For one thing, you won't get those frogs out of your mind very easily. A+

What a wonderful gem of work this is, and I am glad that it was done RECENTLY.

In a time when Pixar is setting the standard for "animation", here comes a film that makes you remember why you liked animation in the first place. This is a wonderful technique film, a study of art film, an abstract film, a joy to watch. The story might be a bit complicated for most to keep up but the beauty of it is - it's complexity. The grandmother was wonderful as well as the dog and the cyclist -- but what blew me away was the overdrawn charatures of the characters.

And there will be no more "frogs" for me, ladies! :)

A deserved USA Oscar nomination. In a Pixar world, bring on more like these to keep the balance too!