Les Triplettes de Belleville

Les Triplettes de Belleville is a 2003 animated feature film written and directed by Sylvain Chomet. It was released as The Triplets of Belleville in North America, and as Belleville Rendez-vous in the UK. The film features the voices of Michèle Caucheteux, Jean-Claude Donda, Michel Robin, and Monica Viegas; although there is some dialogue, the majority of the film story is told through song and pantomime. The film was highly praised by audiences and critics for its unique (and somewhat retro) style of animation. It was an international co-production between companies in France, Belgium and Canada.

It was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song (Benoît Charest and Sylvain Chomet for the song "Belleville Rendez-Vous", sung by artist Matthieu Chédid in the original version). It has won the César of the Best Film Music. As a co-production with Canada it also won the Genie Award for Best Motion Picture.

Plot

Following a 1930s-style cartoon parody featuring the singing Triplettes of the title (Violette, Blanche, and Rose, named after the colours of the French flag) in their heyday, as well as caricatures of Django Reinhardt, Josephine Baker, and Fred Astaire, the story focuses on Madame Souza, an elderly woman raising her orphaned grandson Champion.

While he is a child, she buys him a tricycle, and as the years pass he achieves such excellence as a bicycle rider that he enters the Tour de France. Unfortunately he and two other riders are kidnapped and brought to the fictional city of Belleville (the inhabitants of Belleville represent caricatured 1950s-era American stereotypes, but the city itself is a cross between Paris, Montreal and New York City; it is not strictly in the United States, since the people of Belleville speak French to the extent that they speak at all) where a gangster forces them to bicycle all day long on a gambling machine located in the bowels of the Belleville French Wine Center. With the aid of the family dog Bruno, Madame Souza sets off across the Atlantic on a small pedalo to the city of Belleville where she meets the Triplettes, now aged and decrepit but still performing, and between them they set out to rescue her grandson.

Notes

The film is extremely satirical, poking fun at the French obsession with the Tour de France and other cultural stereotypes; in turn, it depicts Americans as either gross, comically obese people, or muscular mobsters. The film features no spoken dialogue per se, though some spoken words (such as Tour de France radio commentary and a speech by Charles De Gaulle on evening TV) are included sporadically throughout the picture.

For many, the film's strength is found in its visual nuances and wit, including the sight of an exceedingly Django Reinhardt-like character playing along to the dancing 'Triplettes', who in their old age continue to entertain in the form of a cabaret/skiffle act using household items (newspaper, refrigerator, vacuum cleaner) as makeshift instruments, and a dynamic animated car chase.

Unusually the 'mobsters' get-away cars are stretched versions of the Citroën 2CV. Also, the vehicle 'Madame Souza' uses whilst her Grandson is in the Tour de France is a Citroën HY van.

Chomet freely admits to influences from the comic realms of the sitcom.^{[citation needed]} There are also references to the French director Jacques Tati's films Jour de Fête and Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, whose combination of pantomime with sound effects is a major influence on The Triplets of Belleville.

See also

• List of animated feature films

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