Les Triplettes de Belleville (2003)
Directed by Sylvain Chomet

Film Review

Proving that there is a place for adult-targeted animated features if they are of a high enough standard, Les Triplettes de Belleville was one of the world cinema highlights of 2003, critically acclaimed and a box office success.  With its mix of the traditional and the breath-takingly original, this stunning animated work - a French, Belgian and Canadian collaboration - may well usher in a new era of animation, at last putting up a worthy rival to the all-conquering Disney Corporation.

Given the success and celebrity this film has enjoyed, it is remarkable how difficult its director, the French-born Sylvain Chomet, had to get financial backing for the project.  Without Chomet's drive and self-confidence, this film would probably never have seen the light of day, and we would have been denied the pleasure of a spectacular piece of animation.  Chomet's only other work to date was a short animated film, La Vieille Dame et les pigeons, which earned him a certain amount of recognition but nothing like the esteem Les Triplettes de Belleville has given him.

Crafted using traditional 2D animation techniques - a painstaking effort which explains why the film spent over two years in production - Les Triplettes de Belleville has the comforting appeal of the classical animé we all know and love from childhood.  This also adds to the film's very distinctive mood and atmosphere, which has a similar melancholic poetry to that seen in Paul Grimault's Le Roi et l'oiseau and Caro and Jeunet's Delicatessen .  Chomet's main concern appears to have been the characterisation - this is certainly the area where the film is most successful.  From the kind-hearted, indefatigable Madame Souza, to the low-spirited grandson, to the eccentric Belleville triplets, the characters in this animated work will live in our minds long after we have seen the film.

Although aimed at an adult audience, Les Triplettes de Belleville should also appeal to children - certainly the 11 to 15 age bracket - who may find it a welcome antidote to the latest sanitised, overly sentimental offering from Disney.  Certainly there is some great comedy in this film - the frog eating scene being irresistibly funny - but the dramatic (yet oddly surreal) thriller angle, which takes off with a vengeance in the film's last twenty minutes, is what may appeal most to the Lara Croft generation.

Witty, poignant and hugely original, Les Triplettes de Belleville stands as both an enjoyable piece of cinematic entertainment and a respectable work of art.  Is the animated bande-dessinée about to become a whole new genre in French cinema?

Film Synopsis

The solitary Madame Souza is resolved to do all she can to cheer up her sad orphaned grandson, Champion.  When she discovers his passion for cycling, she buys him a bicycle and starts to train him so that he can enter the Tour de France cycling competition.  The years pass, and Champion, now a fit young man, has every chance of living up to his name.  But during the Tour, he is kidnapped by sinister black-clad gangsters and taken across the ocean to the seedy city of Belleville.  With her trusty dog Bruno, Madame Souza sets out to rescue her grandson, not realising what despicable fate his captors have in store for him.  Her quest seems futile until she meets up with three aged women, former music hall performers who have fallen on hard times.  Can these, the once celebrated Belleville triplets, help Madame Souza save her unfortunate grandson...?