A Strange Trip(lettes)
Category: Movies...
Posted Friday, June 18, 2004 at 01:02 PM [GMT-6]

Just finished watching "Les Triplettes de Belleville," the animated movie from last year that was nominated for two Academy Awards. What an odd little film.

Stylistically, it's an "anti-Shrek" animation, more of a throwback to the hand-drawn classics of the 40s and 50s. But there's nothing crude or sloppy about the animation; the characters are simultaneously believable and outrageous. (For some reason, I got a mental picture of Tex Avery on acid.)

The plot is simple. A professional cyclist is kidnapped (from the Tour de France, no less!) and his grandmother and dog go to herculean extremes to rescue him. Along the way, the would-be rescuers meet up with three spinsterish musicians, the Triplets of Belleville.

Interestingly, this is one of the most accurate portrayals of the life of a professional cyclist that I've ever seen. In a cartoon, everything is exaggerated, and that's the case here...only the exaggeration more closely resembles real life than you might expect. One scene shows the grandmother truing a bike wheel, using a tuning fork and a gift shop replica of the Eiffel Tower. That might be lost on non-cyclists, but it made me smile.

But, really, the movie isn't about cycling; that's just the hook. The music is addictive, especially the theme song which was nominated for an Oscar. (If you watched the broadcast on TV, it was the one that looked like a French version of Spike Jones.)

If you rent the DVD, be sure to watch the extras, especially the music video. And don't forget the operative term: "odd."

[I thought I understood what the movie was about, until I visited the film's message board at IMDB.com. Whew. Some people need to get out more often.]