snidgeskin One of the best films I've seen in a while, certainly far outshines other animation features witnessed of late. True animal characteristics for a change. Hugely imaginative, great entertainment, had me laughing out-loud. Three thumbs up!PS: I've gone off frog soup.

Steve Pulaski Many animated films bring forth a recognizable presence on screen, but The Triplets of Belleville brings the damnedest of them all. It's a unique little animated feature, with a lot of style, a lot of heart, and a lot of enigma and illusion presented in its meager runtime. It is a delightful break from the polished mainstream animation, yet I don't believe it's the break a lot of people will be so willing to take.First off, the color pallet takes time to adapt to. It seems someone created storyboards for the film and poured oil all over them. Everything is in a dim green, brown, yellow, or muted tint (very different from the brazen style of candy colors we're so used to seeing today). But it is so limitless and appealing and works on such a wonderful level for the film's imagination. It makes itself out to be modest, yet delivers so much promise and life into its very simplistic screenplay, or lack thereof.The film is mostly silent, punctuated by lively scenes of vaudevillian style musical numbers. We follow Madame Souza, a grandmother to a boy named Champion. He is depressed and very lonely after the implied death of his parents. Souza buys him an irresistible dog named Bruno, but his interest is only held for a short time. When Champion develops a fondness for competitive cycling, Souza buys him a tricycle. We fast-forward several years later where the same boy, now a man, is being coached by Souza for the Tour De France.When he races in the Tour De France, he is kidnapped by the strangest of goons and taken to an unknown location. Souza and Bruno become desperate to find him, and stumble into the care of three elderly women known as the "Belleville Triplets." They are taken in, fed and sheltered, yet are still determined to find Champion and the French henchmen that took him.Besides the unique animation, one of the first things you will notice is the intense and quirky character design. Many characters in the film are disproportionated in size, or are presented as bigger, bulkier, smaller, thinner, wider, or boxier (the henchman have thick, box-like shoulders), with heavy emphasis on muscles and especially facial structure. The result is totally mesmerizing and extremely beyond convention. It gives the film such a surrealistic feeling, but that's not the only thing that contributes to that idea.I define surrealism as realism with a strong twist on obscurity or a strong twist on reality, where logic is strictly applied or noticeably bent. The Triplets of Belleville mixes some live action sequences with stylish old video, particularly, the bike stimulation sequence and the water when traveling at sea. For all I know, those were authentic sea currents.Another thing the film does impeccably well is it conveys emotion using very little dialog. Most of the time, we hear a soft, melodic tune play comfortingly in the background, and once in a while, the triplets will break out into a great, perfectly executed musical number. The emotion is not presented through the window of heavy sentiment, but with crystal clear expression, music tonality, and character appearances all naturally and not in a heavy-handed manner.The Triplets of Belleville is such an admirably different film, but saying that doesn't even do it justice. It establishes this world, which is brilliantly surreal and conceived effervescently, erects it on captivating whimsy and Sylvain Chomet's stunning animation, and relies on subtle, controlled nuances to carry itself through its runtime. Keep in mind, this is a world where animated films are boastful and boisterous in their color, design, and structure, and along comes a film so serene and joyous that we are surprised at it and ourselves for liking it. What an impressionistic gem of a picture.Directed by: Sylvain Chomet.

eduardo ramirez In recent years there has been a boom (mostly thanks to globalization) in the release of foreign animated films outside the common market (i.e. Disney, Dreamworks, Japanese anime), mainly European emerging as alternatives for those seeking animation not made for kids. Within this wave comes the french movie The Triplets of Belleville, one of the most original animated films ever made (in the opinion of this writer, of course).Directed by Sylvain Chomet tells the story of Madame Souza who is in charge of raising her grandson Champion after being orphaned. In search of something that makes him happy, she discovers that Champion's true vocation is cycling and after years of hard training is ready to compete in the famous Tour de France. But in the middle of the competition he is kidnapped by a mafia that uses cyclists for clandestine races and they're killed if they lose. Thus, Madame Souza begins the rescue of her grandson in the bizarre town of Belleville with the help of the triplets of Belleville, famous stars of music hall in the 20's.This is how Chomet creates an amazing story full of absurdities and nonsensical situations that works wonderfully and without the need of dialogues, creates absolute empathy to characters that appear to be designed to cause annoyance. A very curious element is Chomet's decision to portray Belleville (an obvious reference to New York) as a city full of morbidly obese people. Although this is meant as a critique of Western society where consumption makes people apathetic and uninterested in themselves.Moreover, the music plays an important role in this film, without being a musical in the strict sense of the word has incredibly vivid and infectious musical moments, like the opening scene, which recalls the glory years of the triplets and in the making small appearances of legends like Django Reinhardt, Josephine Baker and Fred Astaire, in addition the soundtrack composed by Benoit Charest adds a feeling of nostalgia.In short, The Triplets of Belleville is the perfect example of an animated film that breaks all established and refreshes the genre in an unexpected way.

BigWhiskers Hate is a strong word yet it applies here as I did hate this film. It was rather boring and just pointless. Anyone who says the animation was top notch and better than most Disney or Pixar stuff is on something. The first part of the movie is done in B&W which looks like something out of a 1940's Merry Melodies cartoon, the rest of the movie is done in color and looks a lot like the animation from the Beatles animated movie "Yellow Submarine" with scenery and characters all drawn in weird surreal type images. I found this type of animation to be out of place and really ugly ,not in a bizarre way, just in a cheap way.My other reasons for hating it are virtually no dialog which to some consider that an art form ,sure if you watch an old silent movie but not for a modern work, The characters are all portrayed in caricature or parody too. Americans are all drawn to be obese , Europeans are thin, guys who ride bikes have freakishly large leg muscles etc. I mean can we say contrived here.The Triplets start off as 3 young women singing in the 1920's or 30's , later in the movie they are shown in the present time as 3 old hags who eat frogs and cackle. Their involvement in this really long and drawn out plot of a Tour De France biker getting kidnapped is purely by coincidence. The grandmother blows a whistle incessantly throughout the movie and the Triplets try to sing ,rather badly of course. It's just a train wreck of a movie. Definitely not for kids or for that matter for anyone with decent taste. I'm sorry but I did not find it to be this masterpiece of an art form. If anything it comes across as one long boring bland waste of time and film. Paying 8 dollars for this is a tragedy.