Review of A Monster in Paris (2011) by Edith N — 03 Apr 2012

Who Cares That Physics Says No?

Once again, I have watched a dubbed version. Sorry. But I have now seen this considerably before I thought I would be able to; Netflix still doesn't have a listing for it at all. (So never you mind how I got to see it.) I would love to compare and contrast the French and the English, to talk about where changes are made--to compare the translation of the subtitles and the dubbing, even, which is not something everyone necessarily considers even though it ought to be the most important factor in the sub/dub debate. However, the closest to that I'd be able to get is a tirade on the failings of foreign-language movie distribution in the United States. Honestly, I would probably add a subbed version of this to the list of movies I would use to introduce children to the concept of reading movies, but I can't say for sure, because there simply weren't any options available to see this dubbed or sooner.

Emile (Jay Harrington) is a hapless projectionist with a feckless best friend, Raoul (Adam Goldberg), and a hopeless crush on the ticket girl, Maud (English voice uncredited on IMDb). Raoul is himself crazy about Lucille (also uncredited), a singer in a cabaret. One day, Raoul hauls Emile along with him to make a delivery of peat to the lab/greenhouse of an eccentric inventor, and despite a note specifically instructing him not to touch anything, he and Emile create a monster by using a growth potion on a flea from the monkey, Charles (monkey noises). Naturally, the mere sight of a giant flea terrorizes Paris. Through a series of the kind of coincidences which happens in movies, the flea ends up behind Lucille's cabaret. She happens to overhear him singing (Sean Lennon!), and she ends up naming him Francouer and incorporating him into her act. Alas for her, Préfet Maynott (Danny Huston) is looking for an issue to distract everyone from the fact that the Seine has flooded and drowned about half the city, and the Monster of Paris is it.

Yes. You're right. That is a completely ridiculous plot. In places, what's going on in the movie makes no sense whatsoever. You got me. However, as presented by Bibo Bergeron, the whole thing has a certain charm. Why can the flea sing? How does he learn to play guitar so quickly? Because the story would not work if he did not, and that is all you need know. In fact, the inventor whose work drives the plot is in New York the whole time, so we don't get needless exposition. No one in the movie knows how all this happens, either. It just does. However, once it does, the actions of the various characters are an entirely believable reaction to a giant flea that sings, dances, and plays slide guitar. They're all freaked out at first, because of course they are, but it seems that Francouer doesn't actually need to eat the way that fleas do, because he is literally no threat to anyone in this movie. He just wants to play his music, man.

And, of course, the music is charming. It is a given in fiction set in Paris that the art of everyone involved will be all about glorifying Paris. I don't know why this is; every other city on Earth is assumed to produce at least as much art talking about how terrible the whole thing is. But no, Lucille has made a name for herself, such as it is, singing about the beauty of Paris and the enchantment of la Seine. Which, as I mentioned, has overflowed its banks and is more of a civic disaster than an enchantment at the moment, but never mind. Lucille has a shtick, and she's going with what works. I'll admit that I was initially distracted during Francouer's singing by trying to hear his genetics in his voice, but once I did, I could remember why we were all so fond of his father's voice in the first place. And at least one of the songs felt a bit mid-Beatles to me, which is also quite pleasant. Okay, it's improbable that Lucille and Francouer do such perfectly harmonized and choreographed numbers with no rehearsal, but that's a cinematic convention.

I really don't understand why this movie wasn't nominated for Best Animated Feature this year; honestly, I would have felt [i]Rango[/i] to have been less of a shoe-in if it had been. Certainly this was better than the other two American nominees. I'll admit that the story took a bit longer to get to the main plot than I had thought it would, to the point that only the title card convinced me that it wasn't actually some other movie which had just been mislabeled. But the animation was pretty good, the writing was quite funny, and the overall experience was one I'd love to have again. Maybe actually in French this time. I mock "weird damn French crap," and rightfully so as far as I'm concerned, but the French have a cinematic tradition almost as long as the Americans'. Not everything they do is any good, but there have been some truly great French films over the decades. This isn't quite one of them, but it's very good for all that.