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MovieMail's Review
This truly unique Sylvain Chomet animation is the type of thing you might happen across in the middle of the night on Channel Four and feel compelled to stay up watching until the dawn light breaks. A cyclist, coached by his grandmother, is kidnapped by the Mafia during the Tour De France and taken to the fictional city of Belleville, where the elderly Madame Souza, the family dog, and an ageing song-and-dance trio known as Les Triplettes (a black-and-white Andrews Sisters turned vigilante Blue Man Group) stage a rescue mission.
The opening sequence is a newsreel pastiche of a Triplettes concert featuring performances by Fred Astaire and Glenn Gould, and the film manages to be as effortlessly freewheeling as Astaire while also preserving some of Gould’s hermetic eccentricity. Belleville, whose outline bears some resemblance to the Magic Kingdom and is populated by hideously obese folk in I LOVE BIG! T-shirts, is nonetheless as much inspired by the sprawling, ramshackle spires of a European city as by any American metropolis, with an over-inflated Statue of Liberty that could be standing under the Pont de L’Alma or on Ellis Island, and blimp-like Oscars that could just as much be Cesars.
Le Tour here becomes interchangeable with its pre-race parade, so the competitors find themselves up against chocolate teddy bears and giant lobsters going into the mountain stages; the Mob exist in Requiem For A Dream-style gambling dens, throwing money at cyclists going nowhere before piling out into vehicles prone to being tripped up by Madame Souza’s surgical shoe. Lest they get lost against such deliciously warped a backdrop, Chomet has a fantastic way with characterisation - a ratty Mafia mechanic; a waiter who literally bends over backwards, and the ways in which those characters change: morphing from men into monkeys when aroused by the sight of Josephine Baker, from grown-ups back to little babies when scared by an outbreak of violence.
Given the perpetual motion, many gags (the names and signs on buildings and train carriages) will have passed by too quickly on a first viewing and now only come into play on this video/DVD release, but this is a movie of astonishingly subtle touches such as the horse whinnies heard on the soundtrack as the increasingly equine cyclists are led aside to be put down. Throughout Belleville - on the sides of airships and skyscrapers, and on the registration plates of cars, is the legend ‘In Vino Veritas’, but the biggest compliment one could pay Chomet, and his seemingly limitless imagination, is to wonder what on earth else he might be consuming.
Superb, creative and original animation. Set in 1960s France, this is the story about a boy called Champion and his grandmother, Madame Souza, who encourages him to take part in the Tour de France. When Champion is kidnapped by gangsters, Madame Souza and the Triplets of Belleville jazz trio set out to rescue him. The attention to detail is amazing, and there are plenty of film references to keep spotters happy. In the end though, this is in entirely its own film world and it leads you from one unexpected place to another. You'll be grinning from beginning to end. Unmissable and great fun.
Chomet’s gleeful and wholly entertaining animated film is, inter alia, a homage to the Tour de France, 2 cvs, 70s car-chase movies, Stomp!, frogs’ legs, the jazz age a... more >
Chomet’s gleeful and wholly entertaining animated film is, inter alia, a homage to the Tour de France, 2 cvs, 70s car-chase movies, Stomp!, frogs’ legs, the jazz age and Jacques Tati, who appears in one guise as a weather-vane.
The first few minutes feature (animated) appearances from Josephine Baker, Fred Astaire and Django Reinhardt, with the animation owing much to Max Fleischer’s Betty Boop cartoons. The view then pulls back to show the television we were watching in a modest rural French house with a young boy and his grandmother. This is a large part of the film’s appeal – you never know where it is going to take you next -from rural France to the metropolis of Belleville, from the French wine mafia to a dog’s dreams. Just about anything is possible. The film inhabits a world entirely of its own making, amd makes no concessions to anyone’s expectations. You want an art deco liner? Fine; a cityscape that nods at Lang’s Metropolis? Fine; a jazz-age singing combo that resemble the weird sisters from the Scottish play? Fine; a surgical boot, an engineer that squeaks like a rodent and a waiter that literally bends over backwards? Why ever not?
The comic timing throughout is superb, as demonstrated by the pause before the dynamiting of the frogs (it’s not as bad as it sounds), which is absolutely right. The level of detail too is impressive – not many people would take the care to draw in the heat haze at the side of a van as it follows the Tour up a mountain, or put the writing in the Champion’s cycling scrapbook in ink that is exactly the right shade of fountain-pen blue.
So, the timing is right, the detail is impressive and there are more than enough filmic references throughout to keep spotters happy. Overall though, it’s the sheer sense of fun in the film that is its abiding quality – no mean feat when you consider the momentous amount of work involved in pulling the whole film together. Recommended unreservedly. Tadpole popcorn anyone?
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In 2003, amid Hollywood's swamp of mediocrity, an almost silent, obscure, brilliant French animation found itself on the screens of mainstream cinemas throughout the U... more >
In 2003, amid Hollywood's swamp of mediocrity, an almost silent, obscure, brilliant French animation found itself on the screens of mainstream cinemas throughout the UK and the US and became an instant unforgettable hit.
Champion is a troubled child, seemingly uninterested in everything, he sits sad and alone, with only his devoted dog Bruno for company. That is however until his Grandmother, Madame De Souza, discovers his secret passion for bicycles and fanning the flames of his enthusiasm, they train tirelessly for the gruelling oddity and national obsession that is……Le Tour de France.
During the race, two mysterious men in black kidnap Champion, shipping him off to the smoky Megalopolis of Belleville for reasons unknown, and its left to Madame De Souza, faithful Bruno and a gang of aging music-hall singers to take on the French Mafia and save the day.
Belleville Rendezvous by Sylvain Chomet is a wonderful breath of fresh air. Its eccentric style and melancholic meanderings are perfectly balanced with slapstick comedy, outlandish stereotypes, and music-hall madness. The whole feel of the film is wonderfully French, reminiscent of the surrealist landscape and characters of Jeunet's The City of Lost Children, with its Siamese gangsters, tall ships and derelict dockyards. The animation is handled with a deftness of touch that blends state of the art CGI with a more traditional style into some truly astonishing scenes – the storm battered Trans-Atlantic Pedalo chase is particularly breathtaking.
With almost no dialogue, it is left to the amazing soundtrack to convey the mood and humour of the film. Household objects and discarded junk are used to create beats, rhythms, and layers of melodies that carry the film along at a great pace. Not to mention the main theme which is an unshakeable toe-tapping, finger-snapping ditty you’ll be whistling for days.
With its feet placed firmly in the silent movie tradition Belleville throws down the gauntlet to Hollywood and demands respect and attention from its audience. Proving along with this years spellbinding Spirited Away, and Pixar’s Finding Nemo that animators are at the forefront of intelligent, hilarious and thought provoking cinema.
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