OVP: The Triplets of Belleville (2003)

Film: The Triplets of Belleville (2003)
Stars: Beatrice Bonifassi, Lina Boudreault, Michel Robin
Director: Sylvain Chomet
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Animated Feature, Best Original Song-"Belleville Rendez-vous"
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

We're going to conclude our tribute to animated films with a trip across the Atlantic into France, and for me, the penultimate Best Animated Feature film that I need to see (I only have Jimmy Neutron left & I'll have seen the nominees from every year).  2003 was the first year I would have had regular access to foreign language films in theaters, though as I was limited by a bus pass in the Twin Cities (and an internet that wasn't up to giving detailed directions for public transit yet), I didn't see The Triplets of Belleville when it came out despite it being a movie I was aware of, even before it scored a pair of Oscar nominations.  The film, Sylvain Chomet's first movie, made him something of a sensation with the animation set, though he didn't really use that for much future work (he's only made one feature-length film, The Illusionist, in the years since).  Still, I was curious what I'd think since I was mixed but loved the potential of The Illusionist; sadly, though, I left, continuing to be mixed-but-optimistic on Chomet's work.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film has almost no dialogue, and its plotting is unusual, even in comparison to a movie like The Illusionist, which is also a film with little dialogue (but a more cogent plot).  Essentially we have a grandmother in the 1920's (there are cute cartoon depictions of Fred Astaire & Josephine Baker in the movie's opening act), who is caring for an orphaned boy whose parents have died.  He bemoans his life, and so the grandmother tries to invest in his passions, first music and then bicycling.  The movie moves quickly to his adulthood, when while he's riding in the Tour de France, he's kidnapped by mobsters, and the grandmother must go and find him in Belleville.  There she meets three singing triplets who were once as famous as Baker & Astaire in their day, but have now drifted into poverty.  The four of them save her grandson from the mob, and flee Belleville.

That sounds relatively conventional, right?  But there is nothing conventional about Triplets of Belleville.  The movie's best asset is the animation is fluid and busy.  There are lots of great touches with the production design and the homes that we're in (I loved that for whatever reason the three Triplets watch TV in bed together at night, as if they are impossible to separate from each other), and the animation is sumptuous.  It's occasionally gross (the charred frogs for dinner I could've done without), but it's always interesting.  Combined with the score, and the ear-worm "Belleville Rendez-vous," this is definitely worth your time.

It's just not a great movie.  Unlike The Illusionist, where I think it just peters a bit in the middle, here we have a film that, even at 80 minutes is too long.  The film gives too little background into the grandson (and why he's willing to just watch a movie while having literal blood drained from him-was anyone else confused by that?), and would have been better trimmer or as a short.  There eventually comes a point of diminishing returns as the grandmother encounters new and shocking moments in her adventures, and honestly even for an abstract movie there are too many plot holes.  But this is distinctive, and I'd love to see Chomet make a third feature-length film (which has been rumored for years), as there's definitely something special in the way he approaches animation.