Review of The Triplets of Belleville (2003) by Michael Y — 02 Aug 2011

This animated movie is pretty twisted, but The Triplets of Belleville is a bizarre yet very well thought of movie that is pretty entertaining.

A boy is raised by his grandmother under poor conditions, but they make due as the grandmother tries her best to make her grandson happy. When the boy is all grown up he practices to win the Tour de France. But an unexpected twist happens when the boy is kidnapped, and the grandmother and her dog travel to the big city of Belleville to find him. The cool thing about this movie that seperates it from others is that there is barely any talking. And when I mean barely, I mean there's a sentence said at the beginning of the movie and at the end. That's it. This movie is basically a silent film with the exception of sound effects. But even with no words this movie tells a very clever tale very thoroughly. The story is easy to follow, its entertaining and leaves us with a mystery, and it's pretty funny.

Another thing that makes this movie different than other animated movies: it looks utterly fucked up. To explain, it's like a exageration of the world. When places look desolate, they look like shit. When they show bikers of the Tour de France they have freakishly large legs and look like they're going to die from exhaustion. The fictional Belleville is like a parody of New York, so you see a bunch of fat and rude people. Everything and everybody is a parody or a exageration. But the best ones are the bodygards. But the amount of detail and colour to the film is incredibly impressive, and the artistic details have no end. And this clever little movie is directed and paced very well.

It's the freakiest looking animated movie I could think of, but it is one that it totally worth watching. The Triplets of Belleville is a fine and entertaining story made incredibly well that is also a lot of fun to watch.