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Les Triplettes de Belleville (2003)
Director:
Sylvain Chomet
Genre:
Animation / Comedy
Studio:
Sony Pictures Classics (US distribution)
For more information, head to IMDB.
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Perhaps the greatest testament to "The Triplets of Belleville" is that the animated film from French/Canadian director Sylvain Chomet proves far more imaginative, surreal and inspirational than "Destino", a much-anticipated short animated collaboration between Walt Disney and Salvador Dali screening before the film.
Like another of 2003's finer films, Tim Burton's "Big Fish," "The Triplets of Bellevile" is teeming with the kind of imagination that revels in the details. It's the slow-motion visions of a dog watching subway passengers, the looks on the faces of corpulent American children inhaling junk food on street corners, the Charlie Brown quasi-language (mwah mwah mwah mwah) that takes the film into a new realm of ingenuity.
"Triplets" follows the travails of a bicycle-obsessed man (Champion), his diligently doting grandmother (Madame Souza) and their dog as they battle against square-bodied evil henchmen of the French mafia. As Champion is kidnapped during the Tour De France, the action gets moved to Belleville, a comically bizarre city designed to be a meld of Quebec and New York. There Madame Souza runs into the Triplets of Belleville, a song and dance act modeled loosely on the Broadway show "Stomp," only with a nostalgic Betty Boop meets the Squirrel Nut Zippers twist.
Calling on everything from Charlie Chaplin and Jacques Tati to "101 Dalmations" as formative influences, the director deftly combines music, animation, and film footage with astounding success. Though a child would easily understand the action of the film (and the nonsensical language), "Triplets" is ultimately adult fare, with all of the requisite complexity that entails.
In Chomet's world, bicyclists have grotesquely over-defined calves and ridiculously imposing quadriceps that they use to pedal their kinetically driven phonograph machines. The French dine on mountains of frog legs, while Americans all eat hamburgers and gigantic lollipops under the looming shadow of an obese Statue of Liberty. Dogs dream of steam-driven train rides and reversing the tables on human kind.
From the rousing opener – a dance number featuring an animated Josephine Baker and Fred Astaire juking on a Chomet-written ditty – to a bafflingly original ending chase sequence, I laughed harder at this movie than I have anything in a long time.
I honestly can't remember how many times I caught myself thinking "wow, what a fantastic idea."
This film was a massive success at Cannes in 2003 and an audience favorite at the local Chicago International Film Festival. Catch it while you can at the Landmark Century.
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Written by Richard Sharp
Review Date: January 24, 2004
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