The Triplets of Belleville (2003)

Words cannot capture the delights of The Triplets of Belleville, an astonishing animated movie from the mind of French director Sylvain Chomet. In fact, there are only a few spoken sentences in the entire film; most of the soundtrack is a mix of squeaks, barks, and the jazzy music of Benoit Charest. A bicyclist is kidnapped from the Tour de France by mysterious gangsters; his grandmother travels to the city of Belleville (which has a sardonic version of the Statue of Liberty in its harbor), where she tracks him down with the help of a musical trio gone to seed, the Belleville Triplets. This hand-drawn movie is unlike anything you'll see from Disney; every scene mixes the silent comedy of Jacques Tati and Buster Keaton--in which the world of objects subtly fights with living beings for mastery--and the bouncy hop of Betty Boop. Unique and mesmerizing. --Bret Fetzer Amazon.com

I love the dog

This is a seriously cool animated film. The dog is so funny that it brings a smile to my face just thinking about it. And the grandmother ... sheesh!

However, the real star of the film is the soundtrack. The three old ladies playing the refrigerator, newspaper and vacuum cleaner, accompanied by grandma on the bicycle wheel is priceless.

Get it. Watch it. I dare you not to laugh out loud. November 19, 2008

The Best

This film excels in so many ways!
The drawing is terrific, both in terms of characters and remarkable overviews of the settings.
The characters are so imaginatively rendered, and refreshingly different from American stock
characters. I would say that the character of the dog alone is worth the price of the dvd!
So many surprises and innovations in approach to characters, story, and settings.
But we also get the traditional satisfaction out of real villains, and the remarkable heroism of....GRAMA.
A wonderful journey, wonderful laughs. October 30, 2008

Triplets of Belleville

My entire grown family really enjoyed this wonderful film!!Its so bizzare and true to life at the same time, saying so much without a single word... we just loved it!! September 30, 2008

Best animated movie?

That's my opinion. The animation is glorious and unique. I can't wait for Sylvain's next movie. September 22, 2008

Solid

The film is far too long, at 90 minutes. It could have been greatly heightened by being cut in ½, or preferably to 1/3 its length. It suffers from what much of silent films suffer from, in retrospect. The propulsion of the narrative by broad sweeping gestures is innately heightening, condensing, therefore many of the scenes later on, in the film, become mere recapitulations of earlier scenes whose points were made. Such concision invites imbuement, not explanation, & while the purpose of the tale is never explained, too many needless little bits of exposition are- such as Bruno's dream, or the montage showing the extended oddities of the triplets, since, just 1 look at them, & 1 instance adequately set them up as weirdos we feel something for.

Many critics have pointed out that the film has many layers of throwaway references & tweaks- be it comments on Hollywood & organized crime's financial connections, to pot shots taken at Walt Disney, to homages to obscure cartoon stars of the Great Depression. These may all be true, & heighten the film to its lovers, but to impartial tastes they tend to distract from the overall thrust of the film, which has many virtues- focus not being 1 of them.
As for the DVD, there are requisite making of films & a commentary, but anyone expecting any deeper explication of the film itself will be disappointed. Yet, that's a good thing for, flawed as it is, The Triplets Of Belleville deserves accolades for at least trying to be something unique. That it won an Oscar for it is more of a comment on what its competition lacked than what it possessed. Which may be, in retrospect, the very point of Madame Souza's devotion to her grandson, & why so many people connected with it. September 21, 2008

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