The Triplets of Belleville (French: Les Triplettes de Belleville) is a 2003 animated comedy-drama film written and directed by Sylvain Chomet. It was released as Belleville Rendez-vous in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The film is Chomet's first feature film and was an international co-production among companies in France, Belgium, Canada and the United Kingdom.
The film features the voices of Lina Boudreault, Mari-Lou Gauthier, Michèle Caucheteux, Jean-Claude Donda, Michel Robin, and Monica Viegas. There is little dialogue; much of the narrative is conveyed through song and pantomime. It tells the story of Madame Souza, an elderly woman who goes on a quest to rescue her grandson Champion, a Tour de France cyclist, who has been kidnapped by the French mafia for gambling purposes and taken to the city of Belleville (an amalgamation of New York City, Montreal and Quebec City). She is accompanied by Champion's loyal and fat hound, Bruno, and joined by the Triplets of Belleville, music hall singers from the 1930s, whom she meets in the city.
The film was highly praised by audiences and critics for its unique style of animation and has since gained a cult following. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards—Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for "Belleville Rendez-vous". It was also screened out of competition (hors concours) at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.
Contents
Plot
In France, Madame Souza is raising her grandson Champion, a melancholy orphan. They watch an old variety show on television featuring a trio of singers, the Triplets of Belleville (Rose, Blanche, and Violette). When the program is interrupted, Souza asks Champion if the "film" is finished. The listless Champion does not reply and instead changes the channel to a piano concert. Souza, seeing Champion's interest in the music, pulls out an old piano and tries to amuse him, but Champion remains indifferent. She deduces that Champion is lonely and buys him a dog, Bruno. Neither Bruno nor an electric train set succeed in lifting Champion's spirits, and the dog has no interests apart from eating, sleeping, and barking at trains.
While tidying Champion's room, Souza discovers a book filled with photos of cyclists. She buys Champion a tricycle, and he becomes an obsessive cyclist. Some years later he is competing in the Tour de France, when he is kidnapped by a pair of mobsters in a Citroën van. They take him and two other contestants across the Atlantic, Souza pursuing them on a pedalo.
Arriving in the United States penniless and hungry, Souza and Bruno end up sitting in an alley. With nothing to do, Souza picks up an old bicycle wheel and starts hitting the spokes, making a melody. That attracts the Triplets, and they begin singing to the sound of the bicycle wheel. They take Souza to their seedy apartment. When dinner is finally served, it consists of frog soup and frog stew, with tadpoles for dessert, collected by Violette using "expanding bait". Later, Souza joins their band, for which she plays the bicycle wheel as a hammered dulcimer while the Triplets play a wire refrigerator shelf as a harp, a vacuum cleaner as a bagpipe, and newspaper percussion. During the show, Souza spots the kidnappers. With the help of the Triplets, Souza rescues the cyclists, who had been forced to pedal-power a gambling machine; they all escape on the pedaling frame, pursued by the mobsters in Citroën sedans.
In a flashforward, an older Champion watches the TV again showing their adventure when they are leaving the city and remembers Souza asking once more if the film is finished. Champion turns to the empty bench next to him and says "It's over, Grandma".
In a humorous post-credits scene, the boatman who rented Souza the pedalo is seen patiently waiting for his vessel to return.
Cast
Lina Boudreau as Rose Triplette (voice)
Mari-Lou Gauthier as Violette Triplette (voice)
Michèle Caucheteux as Blanche Triplette (voice)
Béatrice Bonifassi as the Triplets (singing voice)
Jean-Claude Donda as Le Général de Gaulle / Les commentateurs sportifs / Le clochard / Les réclames (voice)
Monica Viegas as Madame Souza (voice)
Graziella de Villa as Madame Souza (English version) (voice)
Michel Robin as 'Champion' adulte (voice)
Noël Baye as 'Champion' adulte (English version) (voice)
Dirk Denoyelle as Les commentateurs sportifs / Le clochard (Dutch version) (voice)
Reception
Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 94% of 148 surveyed critics gave it a positive review, and the average rating was 8.2/10; the consensus reads: "Richly detailed and loaded with surreal touches, The Triplets of Belleville is an odd, delightful charmer." Metacritic, which assigns a normalized score, rated it 91/100 based on 35 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
It is one of the 15 highest-rated animated films of all time on the platform.
Kenneth Turan, writing for Los Angeles Times give a perfect rating and said "Fast, funny, unexpected and uninhibited, The Triplets of Belleville may be animated, but it is also the product of an artistic vision every bit as rigorous as any lofty Cannes prize-winner. Hearing about a film this special isn't enough. It demands to be seen, and it generously rewards those who, like Madame Souza, let nothing stand in their way".
Joe Morgenstern, film critic of The Wall Street Journal, loved the movie and said "A single seeing isn't enough to take in the eccentric marvels of The Triplets of Belleville, an animated feature by Sylvain Chomet that creates a visual language all its own."
Claudia Puig from USA Today gave the film four stars out of four, and write "Both a nostalgic throwback to the silent-picture era and an ultra-modern animated tale, the slyly humorous Triplets of Belleville is artful, engrossing and oddly touching".
A.O. Scott from The New York Times gave the film five stars out of five, said "May be the oddest movie of the year, by turns sweet and sinister, insouciant and grotesque, invitingly funny and forbiddingly dark. It may also be one of the best, a tour de force of ink-washed, crosshatched mischief and unlikely sublimity".
Awards and nominations
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards: for Best Animated Feature, making it the first PG-13 animated film to be nominated in that category; and for Best Original Song (Benoît Charest and Sylvain Chomet for the song "Belleville Rendez-vous", sung by Matthieu Chedid in the original version). The film lost the Best Animated Feature award to Finding Nemo and the Best Original Song to Into the West from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. It also won the César for Best Film Music, and as a co-production with Canada it won the Genie Award for Best Motion Picture and the BBC Four World Cinema Award in 2004.
