The Triplets of Belleville
Animated films have, with new computer techniques and digitalized effects, changed dramatically in the last decade, though the stories they tell have not altered as much. Then along comes The Triplets of Belleville which, though animated in the old-fashioned way (elements drawn with slight variations frame-by-frame to give the illusion of motion) tells a story like no other.
Animator Sylvain Chomet (born in France, resident in Canada for 10 years) has come from WAY out in left field with this one. He opens with a wonderful black-and-white recreation of a 1930’s musical cartoon, featuring the odd, lanky “Triplets,” three songsters who were the fashion years ago in the mythical metropolis of Belleville. Cut to the present day in a provincial town in Anywhere, France, where Madame Souza (squat as an ottoman and with a clubfoot) lives with her laconic, pudgy grandson Champion (and his dog, the barking Bruno). Once the lonely boy gets his first bike, however, his meager life finds a focus--to win the Tour de France bicycle race.
Flash forward to when the mature Champion, a strapping cyclist now, has entered the great race, only to be kidnapped mid-course and spirited away across the sea by an obscure Mafia group. Redoubtable Madame Souza--and Bruno--follow them across tumultuous oceans in a small boat to Belleville, where she runs across the now-aging Triplets (still performing), who take her in and agree to help her find her boy. Turns out the bad guys have shanghaied Champion and some other cyclists for nefarious purposes, but Madame Souza and the Triplets--along with Bruno’s nose--are able to uncover the Mafia hideout and turn the tables on them, saving Champion to race again.
The plot, however, is almost beside the point in a movie whose chief charm is its fabulous invention and stunning graphic work. M. Chomet and his collaborators’ style is distinctive and striking: exaggerated or elongated figures echoing equal parts early 1960’s Disney style, cartoon work like that of Gerard Scaife, Jacques Tati comedies, and surrealist drawings. Scenic backgrounds carry heavy outlines limning much internal detail, with a special emphasis on overhead views--wherein the protagonists are often tiny animated figures moving among grand architectural sweeps. Adding to its unique effect are some modernizing touches, such as the inclusion of 3D effects (offering subtle shading) and some digital work.
Perhaps the imagination of Chomet (making his feature film debut) is best displayed in his creation of Belleville itself, a fantasy metropolis of a kind not seen in motion pictures since Babe became Pig in the City. His confected city contains--he admits--much of Quebec, but a Quebec transformed into a New York pastiche of skyscraper towers and suitably mean streets. The denizens of his Belleville are also mostly grossly obese (always excepting the rail-thin Triplets), an all-too current recognition of American lard-bottoms. Some viewers intrigued by the film’s spectacle might even be driven to come back a second time to get the details they missed the first time through.
Though a French-Belgian-Canadian production, this version of The Triplets of Belleville for American audiences is in English. But dialogue is minimal throughout the film in any case, and it communicates its meanings easily without words. Rated PG-13, this is a film aimed directly at adults, although older (imaginative) children might still find it fascinating--or more likely “weird” in their parlance. Whoever it is pitched to, there is nothing like it on Washington area screens, and it’s worth a visit from adventuresome film fans looking for that something different.
(February 2004)