Thursday, February 12, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: Vive la différence

The Triplets of Belleville is a charming celebration of all things French

By Anthony Allison

As you delve into the deliriously daffy, darkly humorous world of The Triplets of Belleville, it's hard to suppress the guilty thought that our treatment of the French, lately, has been pretty shabby.

So kudos to the Academy members for signaling their readiness for rapprochement by bestowing two Oscar nominations (for best animated feature and best song) on this enchanting 2002 adventure that offers a refreshing change from the usual, Disneyfied cartoon suspects by following the unlikely adventures of a French racing cyclist, his feisty Portuguese grandmother and their faithful dog.

Imagine, if you can, an anarchic mix of Amélie and Wallace & Gromit, with touches of Betty Boop and Jacques Tati (there's a clip from his 1949 comedy Jour de f�te), set against the 1950s Paris backdrop of Albert Lamorisse's classic fable The Red Balloon. And you still won't be close to the sheer inventiveness of Sylvain Chomet.

For the past decade, the French-born animator, who first made a splash with his 1998 short The Old Lady and the Pigeons, has lived in Canada, where he recruited some of the world's finest animation talent for his first feature. The result is a film whose manifold delights, visual rather than narrative (there's practically no dialogue, so subtitles are superfluous), defy adequate description. But the storyline is simple enough.

On the outskirts of Paris, Madame Souza discovers her young, orphan grandson's natural affinity for cycling. Years later, honed to fitness by Grandma's unorthodox training regimen, Champion is ready to compete in the Tour de France. But during the grueling race he's abducted by sinister mafia types who take him aboard an ocean liner to the city of Belleville. There, while Champion is pressed into slave-like servitude as part of a grotesque gambling scheme, Souza and faithful pooch Bruno set out to rescue him, with help from a trio of eccentric, aging vaudeville singers, the Belleville triplets.

The film's portrayal of the corpulent citizenry of Belleville (the name comes from a working-class, melting-pot neighborhood in Paris but here belongs to a surreal, urban amalgam of Quebec and Manhattan), isn't exactly flattering. In this transatlantic megalopolis, even the Statue of Liberty and Oscar statuettes are obese. But Chomet tempers his anti-Americanism by taking satirical potshots at the French too: His Gallic gangsters drive stretch limo versions of Citro‘n 2CVs and there's an extended gag attacking (old stereotypes about) disgusting French cuisine.

Technically, the blend of traditional animation and digital effects is as seamless and satisfying as Beno”t Charest's eclectic score, which mixes "hot" jazz performed, Stomp-style, on everyday objects (refrigerator shelves, a vacuum cleaner), with bits of Bach (the C minor Prelude from the "48") and Mozart (the C minor Mass, K.427).

But what makes Triplets particularly refreshing is that, like the work of Japanese animé master Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke), it's aimed squarely at adults. Most American animation (DreamWorks' Shrek and Pixar's Toy Story are notable exceptions) is dumbed down in the belief that parents will endure anything that's likely to distract their fractious offspring. Chomet, on the other hand, assumes viewers will at least have a passing familiarity with Josephine Baker, Django Reinhardt, Fred Astaire, Charles Trénet and Charles De Gaulle.

If you're too young to know who they are, stay away. Leave this one to discerning grownups who aren't ashamed to admit that Canadians sure make entertaining movies and that last year's boycott of French products, by jingoistic numbskulls protesting Jacques Chirac's refusal to support Baby Bush's groundless and unnecessary war, really was shameful. The French, bless their black berets, have given us so much more than pasteurization, impressionism and Champagne. This gem is just their latest gracious gift.