The Triplets of Belleville
Kindness can come from the unlikeliest of places--even a trio of aging experimental musicians. The Triplets of Belleville is an animated film about an elderly woman credited as Madame Souza--grandmother of Champion, a plump little boy who grows up into a lanky professional cyclist, and the owner of a rotund hound with a disdain for trains named Bruno. Champion is abducted during the Tour de France by the French mafia, and shipped across the ocean to the megalopolis of Belleville, where he is to be exploited in an underground gambling ring. Despite the peril, Madame Souza sets off to save him, joining forces with the eponymous Triplets after a serendipitous jam session beneath a bridge in Belleville one night.
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Despite being a joint international project between the United Kingdom, Canada, and Belgium, The Triplets of Belleville has a pronounced French aesthetic to it, evidenced in the popular French pastimes depicted like the Tour de France, but also in the music by Benoît Charest--as crucial to the film as the animation. That said, the music ventures into international territory with selections peppered throughout that evoke atypical styles like surf music. Characters in The Triplets of Belleville are often portrayed as caricatures, embodying superficial stereotypes--especially true when Madame Souza makes her voyage across the ocean to Belleville, represented as a New York City populated with fat people obsessed with hamburgers. Virtually all of the characters in The Triplets of Belleville are depicted as bizarre and even absurd. When the mafia's broad shouldered goons abduct Champion, he and the other cyclists neigh and whinny like exhausted horses; when Champion boards the truck, the sounds of shuffling hooves can be heard. The Triplets of Belleville depicts a world that is like a funhouse version of our own, frozen in an ambiguous past similar to the 1950s, reinforced by details like tiny black and white television sets and the predominance of record players. Perspective is almost always exaggerated in The Triplets of Belleville, like the ocean liner as tall as a skyscraper that ships the cyclists across the ocean. Even Madame Souza is an odd looking woman--one leg is far shorter than the other, which she compensates with a single exaggerated heel--and the adult Champion is all skin and bones above the waist and rippling muscle below. The film opens with Madame Souza and Champion watching an old video of the Triplets performing in Belleville alongside caricature renditions of Django Reinhardt and others. The animation style here is designed to resemble the early days of cartoons like "Steamboat Willie", in contrast to the style throughout the rest of the film, with its muted colors and predominance of earth tones.
The Triplets of Belleville pays homage to the films of Jacques Tati--there is even a poster on the wall of the Triplets' apartment for Monsieur Hulot's Holiday. The film is almost entirely without dialogue; even in scenes where there is background dialogue, it is often mumbled or without subtitles, emphasizing that what is said is unimportant, save that it fleshes out the world of The Triplets of Belleville. Bruno understandably cannot speak, yet he remains one of the most communicative and sympathetic characters in the film. An early scene where a toy train runs over his tail illuminates his longstanding grudge with trains, justifying why Bruno emphatically barks at each and every elevated train that passes right by Madame Souza's house like it were his mission in life. Bruno even dreams about trains in some of the most surreal sequences in The Triplets of Belleville, giving an inner look into the psyche of the soporific canine. Despite lacking in dialogue, The Triplets of Belleville manages to eloquently communicate the backstory of Madame Souza and Champion. For example, Madame Souza is Champion's grandmother, yet she is taking care of him instead of his parents. This is implied to be due to some tragedy befalling them, and that they were cycling enthusiasts themselves--all of which is conveyed through a picture Champion keeps above his bed of the couple with their bicycle. Like the audience, Madame Souza makes this connection while trying to discover what she can do to cheer the young Champion up; it's when she gets him a tricycle that he lights up with joy.
Music is the language of the Triplets; when the crestfallen Madame Souza is plunking at a bicycle wheel after she and Bruno have struck out trying to find Champion, the sound draws the silver-haired matriarchs out of the shadows like a siren's call. The women bond over music almost immediately, and the Triplets even invite Madame Souza to their tenement apartment for dinner. Unfortunately for their guest, the three eccentric women dine exclusively on frogs they farm from the nearby beach, blasting the amphibians out of the water with no less than grenades. Madame Souza scratches her head at the Triplets' reluctance to use their home decor for its intended purpose--from the refrigerator to a simple newspaper--until it becomes clear that these are the instruments they use in their stage performance. As strange as the Triplets are, they show real determination in reuniting Madame Souza with Champion, even placing themselves in extreme peril to do so. The Triplets all but become action heroes in their movie, fighting off mafia assassins with a frying pan and being chased through the city astride a mechanized racing platform that has become Champion's prison. The Triplets are somewhat like benevolent witches, casting incantations with the music they conjure from almost any source, and stirring cauldrons filled with dried tadpoles--they are especially prone to good-natured cackling. The Triplets may be a bit odd, but they prove to be the most reliable of friends, recalling the old adage that you shouldn't judge someone by appearances--especially when everyone looks a bit strange already.
Recommended for: Fans of an imaginative animated film that honors both vintage cartoons and the French New Wave. The Triplets of Belleville has an exciting and catchy score which compliments the eccentric character design and vibrant animation.
The Triplets of Belleville pays homage to the films of Jacques Tati--there is even a poster on the wall of the Triplets' apartment for Monsieur Hulot's Holiday. The film is almost entirely without dialogue; even in scenes where there is background dialogue, it is often mumbled or without subtitles, emphasizing that what is said is unimportant, save that it fleshes out the world of The Triplets of Belleville. Bruno understandably cannot speak, yet he remains one of the most communicative and sympathetic characters in the film. An early scene where a toy train runs over his tail illuminates his longstanding grudge with trains, justifying why Bruno emphatically barks at each and every elevated train that passes right by Madame Souza's house like it were his mission in life. Bruno even dreams about trains in some of the most surreal sequences in The Triplets of Belleville, giving an inner look into the psyche of the soporific canine. Despite lacking in dialogue, The Triplets of Belleville manages to eloquently communicate the backstory of Madame Souza and Champion. For example, Madame Souza is Champion's grandmother, yet she is taking care of him instead of his parents. This is implied to be due to some tragedy befalling them, and that they were cycling enthusiasts themselves--all of which is conveyed through a picture Champion keeps above his bed of the couple with their bicycle. Like the audience, Madame Souza makes this connection while trying to discover what she can do to cheer the young Champion up; it's when she gets him a tricycle that he lights up with joy.
Music is the language of the Triplets; when the crestfallen Madame Souza is plunking at a bicycle wheel after she and Bruno have struck out trying to find Champion, the sound draws the silver-haired matriarchs out of the shadows like a siren's call. The women bond over music almost immediately, and the Triplets even invite Madame Souza to their tenement apartment for dinner. Unfortunately for their guest, the three eccentric women dine exclusively on frogs they farm from the nearby beach, blasting the amphibians out of the water with no less than grenades. Madame Souza scratches her head at the Triplets' reluctance to use their home decor for its intended purpose--from the refrigerator to a simple newspaper--until it becomes clear that these are the instruments they use in their stage performance. As strange as the Triplets are, they show real determination in reuniting Madame Souza with Champion, even placing themselves in extreme peril to do so. The Triplets all but become action heroes in their movie, fighting off mafia assassins with a frying pan and being chased through the city astride a mechanized racing platform that has become Champion's prison. The Triplets are somewhat like benevolent witches, casting incantations with the music they conjure from almost any source, and stirring cauldrons filled with dried tadpoles--they are especially prone to good-natured cackling. The Triplets may be a bit odd, but they prove to be the most reliable of friends, recalling the old adage that you shouldn't judge someone by appearances--especially when everyone looks a bit strange already.
Recommended for: Fans of an imaginative animated film that honors both vintage cartoons and the French New Wave. The Triplets of Belleville has an exciting and catchy score which compliments the eccentric character design and vibrant animation.