Films Worth Watching by Robert Alstead

The bad guys merge into one in Sylvain Chomet's The Triplets of Belleville (Les Triplettes de Belleville). Photo credit: Odeon Films

The line between adult and children’s entertainment has blurred in recent years. Just look at movies like Babe, Shrek, Finding Nemo and Harry Potter to see the evidence. Add to that list The Triplets of Belleville, although this feature from Montreal-based director Sylvain Chomet and crew is in a class of its own.

While this wildly imaginative, animated black comedy is as unsettling as it is touching, it combines vivid characterization with edgy humour and grotesque imagery. There is no dialogue or narration. Characters grunt, mumble, snort, growl or squeak and the swinging soundtrack riffs nostalgically on numbers from the musical hall and jazz age.

The story begins with a sad little boy, Champion, who lives in an old towered building among the rolling hills of the French countryside. Each day, he sits on the edge of his bed, head hung in a state of lonely tristesse while the mellifluous tick-tock of a grandfather clock marks time.

His grandmother, Madame Souza, a bespectacled, little old lady with a clubfoot, tries to lift his spirits with presents. But he always ends up slumping back into his depression, even when given an enthusiastic puppy called Bruno. Then she gives him a tricycle. He takes to it in a flurry of joy and it becomes his friend for life.

Moving ahead in time, we meet Champion as Tour de France contender. The faraway look of calm in his eyes and his grotesquely muscular legs reveal how he has grown at one with his machine. Granny Souza has turned training instructor, a job that involves pursuing him through the streets, rhythmically peeping a whistle that is welded to her lips and massaging his back at night with a lawnmower.

Success beckons, but in the Tour itself, while climbing through the Alps, Champion is kidnapped by two sinister triangular-shaped men in black. As the captors set sail across the ocean in a ship the size of a skyscraper, Mme Souza and Bruno, give dogged pursuit in a pedalo. The journey takes them to Belleville, a caricature New York, where she meets the Triplets. This eccentric elderly threesome, who skiffle on household implements and sing harmonies in the style of the Andrew sisters, help Souza save Champion from the French mafia.

Bizarre was never so enjoyable. There are many memorable touches and leaps of imagination that lie in wait. Where else will you find Fred Astaire eaten by his tap-dancing shoes? Or an instrumental solo played on a vacuum cleaner?

The animation style, which uses a mixture of hand drawn and digital techniques, has a very fluid and richly textured quality. The detail of the city and landscapes is wonderful. The visuals move from crazy swirls to a point where on the ocean crossing, the colours have so much depth it is like watching a gigantic oil painting in motion.

The characterization is particularly memorable because it is so stylized: the Tour de France cyclists who are depicted like thoroughbred horses, the obese Belle-villians, the Triplets who survive on a diet of frogs, or the obsequious maitre d’ who bends so far backwards that he is looking at the world upside down.

So much invention deserves more than one viewing.

With February having Valentine’s Day here are five great romantic films:

It Happened One Night (1934)
Screwball comedy with Claude Colbert as a spoiled, runaway heiress who is helped by reporter Clarke Gable, looking for a story.

The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Classy love triangle with Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart.

Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991)
Juliet Stevenson is rescued from the depths of grief when lover, Alan Rickman, returns from beyond the grave to be reunited in this British Ghost.

The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
Clint Eastwood hangs up his holster for some serious romance with Meryl Streep.

Amelie (2001)
Shy, naive Parisian girl covertly helps others and finds love along the way.

Robert Alstead runs film, DVD and video ezine iofilm. Contact him at www.iofilm.ca.






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