| The Triplets of Belleville | |
|---|---|
 French release poster |
|
| Directed by | Sylvain Chomet |
| Produced by | Didier Brunner Paul Cadieux Regis Ghezelbash Colin Rose Viviane Vanfleteren |
| Written by | Sylvain Chomet |
| Starring | Béatrice Bonifassi Lina Boudreault |
| Music by | Benoît Charest |
| Editing by | Dominique Brune Chantal Colibert Brunner Dominique Lefever |
| Distributed by | Diaphana Films (France Theatrical) Sony Pictures Classics (US Theatrical) Tartan Films (UK) |
| Release date(s) | France: 11 June 2003 United Kingdom: 29 August 2003 United States: 26 November 2003 |
| Running time | 78 minutes |
| Country | France Belgium Canada United Kingdom |
| Language | French English |
| Budget | $8,000,000[1] |
The Triplets of Belleville (French: Les Triplettes de Belleville) is a Belgium-Quebec-France coproduced 2003 animated surreal adventure film written and directed by Sylvain Chomet. It was released as Belleville Rendez-vous in the United Kingdom. The film is Chomet's first feature film and was an international co-production between companies in France, United Kingdom, Belgium and Canada.
The film features the voices of Michèle Caucheteux, Jean-Claude Donda, Michel Robin, and Monica Viegas; there is little dialogue, the majority of the film story being told through song and pantomime. It tells the story of Madame Souza, an elderly woman who goes on a quest to rescue her grandson Champion, a Tour de France cyclist, who has been kidnapped by the French mafia for gambling purposes and taken to the city of Belleville. She is joined by the triplets of Belleville, music hall singers from the 1930s, who she meets in the city, and her obese hound dog, Bruno.
The film was highly praised by audiences and critics for its unique (and somewhat retro) style of animation. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards — Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song for "Belleville Rendez-vous". It was also screened out of competition (hors concours) at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.[2]
Contents |
The story focuses on Madame Souza, an elderly woman raising her young grandson, Champion. Souza notices her grandson is sad and lonely so she buys him a puppy named Bruno to cheer him up. Although initially happy, he quickly becomes melancholy once again. After discovering that Champion has a keen interest in road bicycle racing, because it is inferred that Champion's deceased parents were bicyclists, she buys him a tricycle. Years later, Champion becomes a professional cyclist with Souza as his coach.
Eventually, Champion enters the Tour de France but during the race, he and two other riders are kidnapped by two French mafia henchmen and brought to the bustling metropolis of Belleville, somewhere in the North America. Souza and Bruno follow the men, but lose their trail soon after reaching the city. Lost and with no way to find Champion, Souza has a chance encounter with the renowned Belleville triplets, music hall singers from the 1930s, now elderly women turned improvisational musicians. The sisters take Souza to their home and over time she becomes a part of their group. Meanwhile, the mafia boss drugs the kidnapped cyclists and employs a mechanic to build a stationary cycling machine for the racers to race on — to create their own mini Tour de France for gambling.
At a fancy restaurant the triplets plus Souza perform a jam session using a newspaper, refrigerator, vacuum and bicycle wheel. The mafia boss who kidnapped her grandson happens to be in the same restaurant and, with the help of Bruno, Souza realizes he has Champion. She tails one of the mafia's minions the next day and discovers their scheme. That night, several mob bosses and their henchmen arrive at the mafia hideout and place bets on the riders. Madam Souza, Bruno and the triplets then infiltrate the hideout and sabotage the contraption, unbolting it from the ground and turning it into a pedal-powered vehicle on which they all escape. The mob henchmen pursue them, but are all thwarted amidst the chase. The film ends with the motley group riding on out of Belleville, and a flashforward to an elderly Champion reflecting on the adventure.
There are references to the French director Jacques Tati's films Jour de Fête and Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, whose combination of pantomime with sound effects was an influence on The Triplets of Belleville.[citation needed]
Citroën vehicles influenced the design of the vehicles in the film: the mobsters' getaway cars are stretched versions of the Citroën 2CV, and the vehicle that Madame Souza uses whilst her grandson is in the Tour de France is a Citroën HY van. She has a near accident with a Citroën DS while training Champion in the beginning of the movie.
The film's music is inspired by that of the 1920s, and includes characters reminiscent of Josephine Baker, Fred Astaire, Glenn Gould and a Django Reinhardt-like character who plays along to the dancing Triplettes as Charles Trenet conducts the band. Johann Sebastian Bach's Prelude No. 2 from The Well-Tempered Clavier (Book 1), is also featured during the bicycle scene (played by Glenn Gould).
In the liner notes of the soundtrack CD, Benoît Charest indicated that his music ideas stemmed from his desire to see if he could make a song using a refrigerator, a vacuum, and a piece of paper. These "instruments" in fact show up both in the film and on the soundtrack.[citation needed]
The film makes coy references to fundamental physics. For instance, the opening credits are set in a frame which contains the Einstein Field Equations, the basis of General Relativity, along the bottom of the picture.
The film also references the artist Robert Crumb. During Bruno's first dream sequence while he is riding the train he passes the window of the house. Inside the house stands a tall, lanky man wearing hat and glasses who closely resembles the famous artist.
A German cyclist in the film closely resembles Butt-head from Mike Judge's Beavis and Butt-head.
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature, making it the first PG-13 animated film to be nominated in that category, and Best Original Song (Benoît Charest and Sylvain Chomet for the song "Belleville Rendez-vous", sung by Matthieu Chedid in the original version). The film lost the Best Animated Feature award to Finding Nemo. It also has won the César for Best Film Music, and as a co-production with Canada it won the Genie Award for Best Motion Picture and the BBC Four World Cinema Award in 2004.
|
|||||
| Les Triplettes de Belleville (The Triplets of Belleville) | |
| Directed by | Sylvain Chomet |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Didier Brunner Paul Cadieux Regis Ghezelbash Colin Rose Viviane Vanfleteren |
| Written by | Sylvain Chomet |
| Starring | Béatrice Bonifassi Lina Boudreault |
| Music by | Benoît Charest |
| Distributed by | Diaphana Films (France Theatrical) Miramax Films (US Theatrical) Tartan Films (UK) |
| Release date(s) | 11 June 2003 (France) 29 August 2003 (UK) 26 November 2003 (US, limited release) |
| Running time | 78 Minutes |
| Country | France Belgium Canada UK |
| Language | French English |
| Budget | $8,000,000[1] |
Les Triplettes de Belleville is a 2003 animated feature film written and directed by Sylvain Chomet. It was released as The Triplets of Belleville in North America, and as Belleville Rendez-vous in the UK. The film features the voices of Michèle Caucheteux, Jean-Claude Donda, Michel Robin, and Monica Viegas; there is little dialogue, the majority of the film story being told through song and pantomime. The film was highly praised by audiences and critics for its unique (and somewhat retro) style of animation. It was an international co-production between companies in France, United Kingdom, Belgium and Canada.
Contents |
Following a 1930s-style cartoon parody featuring the singing Triplettes of the title (Violette, Blanche and Rose, whose names are loosely patterned on the colours of the French flag) in their heyday, as well as caricatures of Django Reinhardt, Glenn Gould, Josephine Baker, Charles de Gaulle, Oscar Levant, and Fred Astaire, the story focuses on Madame Souza, an elderly Portuguese emigrant woman raising her grandson Champion.
Seeking to pull him out of his funk, she buys the child a tricycle, and as the years pass he achieves such excellence as a cyclist that he enters the Tour de France. Bizarrely, he and two other riders are kidnapped and brought to the bustling metropolis ironically called Belleville ("Beautiful Town").
The mostly grotesquely obese and almost all inhumane inhabitants of Belleville represent caricatured 1950s-era stereotypes. The pint-sized French mafiosi, with their heavily armed henchmen, place wagers on the three buccaneered riders who, when not chained in a basement during the day, are forced to pedal all night on a bicycle-based gambling machine located in the bowels of the Belleville French Wine Center. (The motto In vino veritas appears frequently throughout the film on the sides of lorries, et al.) With the aid of her dog Bruno, Madame Souza sets off on a paddle boat journey to the city of Belleville. There she meets the Triplettes, now old and poor and their looks long gone, but kind. The indivisible trio still performs in public in their new, senilescent way, and they often break into impromptu music jams when prodded by even the most rudimentary musical sounds.
The four women and Bruno set out to rescue Madame Souza's grandson.
There are references to the French director Jacques Tati's films Jour de Fête and Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, whose combination of pantomime with sound effects was an influence on The Triplets of Belleville.[citation needed]
Citroën vehicles influenced the design of the vehicles in the film: the mobsters' getaway cars are stretched versions of the Citroën 2CV, and the vehicle that Madame Souza uses whilst her grandson is in the Tour de France is a Citroën HY van. She has a near accident with a Citroën DS while training Champion in the beginning of the movie.
The film's music is inspired by that of the 1920s, and includes characters reminiscent of Josephine Baker, Fred Astaire, Glenn Gould and a Django Reinhardt-like character who plays along to the dancing Triplettes as Charles Trenet conducts the band. Johann Sebastian Bach's Prelude No. 2 from The Well-Tempered Clavier (Book 1), is also featured during the bicycle scene (played by Glenn Gould).
In the liner notes of the soundtrack CD, Benoît Charest indicated that his music ideas stemmed from his desire to see if he could make a song using a refrigerator, a vacuum, and a piece of paper. These "instruments" in fact show up both in the film and on the soundtrack.[citation needed]
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature, making it the first PG-13 animated film to be nominated in that category, and Best Original Song (Benoît Charest and Sylvain Chomet for the song "Belleville Rendez-vous", sung by Matthieu Chedid in the original version). It also has won the César for Best Film Music, and as a co-production with Canada it won the Genie Award for Best Motion Picture and the BBC Four World Cinema Award in 2004.
| |||||
   | Official website (French) - Les Triplettes de Belleville - Un film de Sylvain Chomet |
| | BellevilleRendezvous.com - banned interdit verboden prohibido vietato proibido |
| | IMDb ''Triplettes de Belleville, Les (2003)'' - Les triplettes de Belleville (2003) |
|
|
Wikis
Facts
Search
