MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: Sylvain Chomet
Starring: Beatrice Bonifassi, Lina Boudreau, Mari-Lou Gauthier
"The Triplets of Belleville" Video
Review courtesy of Blaise Adamson
Under the fish-shaped shadow of Finding Nemo, Les Triplettes de Belleville is unlike any cartoon animation churned out in the early 2000s. This surrealist's dream presents its characters in dull colors with features highly exaggerated. The haunting and slightly sinister quality is intriguing and eliminates some of the innocence found in the average children's film. No more than two sentences are spoken throughout the entire film, with grunts and incomprehensible garble the only thing the characters say. It is a fantastic example that even without witty and intelligent dialogue you can still move an audience to laugh and cry. A buy-eyed grandma with a limp, a mouse-eared mechanic and three brilliantly twisted sisters are only a handful of the highly original and eclectic groups of characters. While I don't understand the caricatures of the French people, when they arrived in Belleville, New York, I was in hysterics at the portrayal of the Americans as gigantic fat slobs.