The Triplets of Belleville is a french animated comedy produced by Sylvain Chomet
(Also known for The Old Lady and the Pigeons and The Illusionist). The story follows an elderly woman who goes all out to rescue her grandson, a Tour de France cyclist, when he is one day abducted by the mafia along with several other cyclists for gambling purposes. Joining alongside her and her pet dog Brune in her rescue mission are the aforementioned triplets of Belleville, music hall singers from the 1930s.
The art is amazing detailed and I just adore how original and crazily designed the characters are from one another (An absolute inspiration for character designs and of course great references!), I am not one for caricatures so this is really saying something. While considered just a rescue story of sorts, it is presented in a surprisingly original and fantastic way, with unique yet still likable protagonists (A group of musically talented old ladies), with oodles and oodles of surreal imagery that unnerves you yet also intrigues you to see what happens next.
The opening scene was a pretty nice parody to celebrities of the 1930s (Complete with Hollywood styled rubber hose animation), it was a signification of stranger things to come once the real story started. It was also a nice way to introduce the titular characters in their heydays by seeing them perform a catchy song while craziness occurs all around them. Also a neat thing to see was how the screen ratio widened from 1.33:1 (The screen ratio for televisions at that time) when entering the setting of the real story.
The choice in not using dialogue for this film actually worked really well, especially since the film was already focusing heavily on actions, body language and facial expressions, even whilst planning amongst themselves on how to save her grandson, it actually allowed more suspense as compared to being able to understand what they are saying.
While the film consisted mainly of cel-shaded animation, there were also quite a number of notable scenes where CGI was used (Such as Bruno's dream), it however does not deter the overall beauty of this strange movie.
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