Analysis Of The Triplets Of Belleville

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1 INTRODUCTION
The Triplets of Belleville (French: Les Triplettes de Belleville) is a 2003 animated comedy film written and directed by Sylvain Chomet. There is little dialogue, the majority of the film story being told 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. She is joined by the Triplets of Belleville, music hall singers from the 1930s, whom she meets in the city, and her obese hound, Bruno.
The film was highly praised by audiences and critics for its unique style of animation. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards — Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for "Belleville Rendex-vous". It was also screened out of competition (hors concours) at the 2003 Cannes Festival.

2 THEMES
From the extensive Movie Theme Index List found at textweek.com, the following themes were distinctly identified in the film:
(in alphabetical order)
• Acceptance
• Alienation
• Compassion
• Crime
• Dreams
• Journey
• Determination
• Servanthood (servants of the Mafia)
• Sisterhood
• Strength
3 REVIEW
I feel like admitting this, the starting scenes in the film confused me. I had to double-check the release date of the film! The starting credits appear in 1930s animation with 1930’s jazz background score, something like the way Popeye began! The starting performance by the Belleville Sisters and the bizarre theatrics that follow pretty much set the tone for the rest of the film. This film is more of detail and quirks than a complex storyline. In fact, to sum it all up, it is just a really determined grandmother’s quest to r...

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...acquired all the techniques contributed by the Anglo-Saxons. It is like that in Eastern Europe, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Italy.”

On being asked about the reason for no dialogue in the film, he replied,
“I’m very involved with the whole line test thing. For me, when you’ve worked all day on an animation and that moment when you see the drawings move, that’s a really magic moment, and there is no sound to it. I also think that an animation without the constraints of spoken words is stronger. If you have to fit everything to the words, all the gestural movement revolves around the mouth. Without it, you are much freer to create true animation, to talk through animation itself. Animation modeled around the dialogue is like something, which has already been set in stone, there’s less scope for interpretation. I have always wanted the animators to bring something to it.”

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