The Triplets (of Belleville)

animated feature from Canada that could upset Finding Nemo for best animated pic?
full name: The Triplets of Belleville

Anyone?

fuck.

well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me!

'animated feature from Canada'

eh?

Country: France / Belgium / Canada / UK

uh ok.

Triplets of Belleville, offbeat cartoon made in Montreal, looks for Oscar
By Daisy Nguyen
LOS ANGELES (AP) — If Sylvain Chomet has his way, three cartoon women making music from a vacuum cleaner and refrigerator will perform at the Oscars.
Chomet directed The Triplets of Belleville, which is nominated for best animated film and best song. As Sunday’s awards show approached, he was negotiating with producers to have his cartoon heroes perform the song rather than a well-known musician.
Such a scenario, the French animator says, would surely captivate Oscar viewers jaded by too many standard song-and-dance numbers, as well as capture his cartoon’s delightfully weird spirit. Triplets is virtually devoid of dialogue, so music and song become another character alongside the trio of three elderly scat singers who help a resourceful grandmother find her kidnapped grandson.
“I always say animation is 50 per cent image, 50 per cent sound,” Chomet said during a recent phone interview. “The triplets became the triplets with the help of the music. It’s simple and alive, beautiful and silly.”
The made-in-Montreal Triplets is a French-Canadian-Belgian-U.S. co-production. It’s competing for best animated film against odds-on favourite Finding Nemo, a blockbuster computer-generated tale of a clownfish’s relentless search for his lost son. But if there were to be a “jaw dropper” upset, said Tom O’Neil, author of The Movie Awards, Triplets is best poised to pull it off.
“Oscar voters are not afraid to take a chance on a kooky, arty animated film,” said O’Neil, noting the Japanese film Spirited Away upset the Disney hit Lilo and Stitch at last year’s Academy Awards.
This year, the race is even more intriguing because both contenders are admired for their artistic achievements. And although far fewer moviegoers have seen Triplets, it has been a favourite of critics.
“It’s appreciated for the artistic chances that it takes,” said O’Neil, whose Web site GoldDerby.com tracks awards-show predictions. “It’s weird, artistic brilliance.”
The film blends hand-drawn animation with computer-generated imagery, resulting in intricate backdrops and wildly imaginative depictions of the human form. It’s rated PG-13 because it contains some frightening scenes and cartoon nudity, but Chomet believes it’s acceptable for the whole family.
Its other oddities include a bizarre plot all but impossible to summarize, black-and-white sequences depicting a dog’s dreams and cliched images of obese residents of Belleville, a New York-like city whose residents include chain-smoking, frog-eating Frenchmen.
Chomet says he revels in creating such a world.
“What’s fantastic about caricatures is you can go to extremes, and the more extreme the more funny it is,” says the 40-year-old director. “I put the American cliche about the French and the French cliche about the Americans in this film to say, ‘Let’s have a big laugh about ourselves.”’
And then there’s that catchy theme music nominated for the best original song. At the heart of it are sounds from a vacuum cleaner that Montreal composer and jazz guitarist Benoit Charest has named “mouf mouf.”
The song has kept many a moviegoer humming well after leaving the theatre — despite the perplexing, nonsensical lyrics.
Chomet said he created the song with his British wife, incorporating onomatopoeic sounds with words from both their native languages.
The refrain goes: “Singing Belleville rendezvous. Marathon dancing doop dee doo.”
“It’s bizarre and it doesn’t mean anything,” Chomet says, “just like the triplets.”

Go see it. No movie i've seen in recent memory makes such a creative use of sound (and i'm not just talking about music). Classic.

It's one of the best cartoons since the warner brothers' glory days.

Yeah, I second Ed on that.

In the UK, it was called Belleville Rendezvous. Not quite sure why they renamed it (perhaps to appeal to the French-loving arthouse crowd?). It was shown on the telly last xmas, and very good it was too.

"Bellville Rendezvous" is the name of the triplets' big hit song in the movie. I actually heard it on the radio one time in New York (but it was the French radio station).

Great film, the theater I saw it in was packed and I was thinking to myself how people could think there was no market for independent animation.

Is there any reason it would be innapropriate to take a small child to see this film? Subtitles no biggie, if it makes such use of sound as I've been told, he'll be thoroughly entertained. But there's no like gunfights or random tittehs in it right?

yr against random tittehs?

There are gunfights, a kidnaping, and probably random tittehs but I think that because of the way it's presented none of it is inappropriate for a small child, actually.

I took my grandma to see this.... I was wowed, she was perplexed.

I love it.

I only wish the soundtrack had the 20 second long moment where the grandmother sits down at the triplets' piano and sings while playing.

but the soundtrack has everything else. it's wonderful.

it's a wonderful movie. completely enchanting, even on repeated viewings. and the song is so great! it should win, or at least lose to 'kiss at the end of the rainbow' (which is also lovely -- if that fucking sting song wins, though ...)

bummer.
it's not playing at the rep theatre here until late april, and not out on DVD until May. But it sounds like something I will enjoy.

Don't forget to stay through the credits...

I loved Triplets. It was strange at some points. Did anyone else notice, besides me, that the floater in the toilet was shaped like Mickey Mouse's head. That was very clever. Anyway, does anyone have the lyrics to the French or English versions of "Belleville Rendez-Vous"? The origonal version by -M-.

Oh yeah, and the person who didn't put their name, they had that part in the sountrack where Grandma plays piano. It's at the very end of the English "Belleville Rendez-Vous".

yesterday afternoon i saw a hummer limousine pulling into a gas station, gingerly easing its way up the drive, at a slant, making me hold my breath the way you do when you see a sports car with a low bumper pulling in towards you, and i was thinking about the henchmen in the film and the genius of the chase sequence, squared shoulders, so awkward, tilted, everything but speed, maybe taking us back that way to new york in the twenties, or whenever it was, and all the hills and wide turns, a car or a bicycle, so labored, never really getting anywhere. never quite loose. and as momus is fond of saying - i should say something here about the impossibility of elegance.

I want to see a prequel in which we see the triplets at the height of their fame, amid all their music hall collegues.

Totally. As I mentioned on another ToB thread, that opening scene was my favorite. An entire film done in that style could be lots of fun (if a bit tiring).

I saw that movie and I'm intending on seeing it again I enjoyed both the music and the animation and the fresh new storyline that I find lacking in the most recent Hollywood "Money-makers" that only seem to have me lose faith in mainstream theatre thank you Sylvain Chomet for this cinematic treasure I intend to show to as many of my friends and family as my budget will allow.

Is there a prequel.. I didn't realise there was one.. or is that you just wishing there was one..

cheers
Lej

Wishing for a prequel.

The opening scene was great, but I was worried that the rest of the film was going to be an homage to/pastiche of old cartoons, and not have any original style of its own. Happily, I was proven wrong.

Its much more of an homage to Tati, other than the brilliant opening sequence.

god i have to see this

it only plays here in the mornings and early afternoons, for kids i guess, which explains why i haven't yet

Oooooooo-
Oooooooo-
Oooooooo!
Singing Belleville Rendez-vous
Marathon dancing doop dee doo!...

ur welcome :)

French lyrics:
J'veux pas finir mes jours à TombouctouLa peau tirée par des machines à clousMoi je veux être fripéeTriplement fripéeFripée comme une Triplette de bellevilleJ'veux pas finir ma vie à AcapulcoDanser toute raide avec des gigolosMoi je veux être tordueTriplement tordueBalancée comme une Triplette de BellevilleRefrain:Swinging Belleville rendez-vousMarathon dancing doop dee doopVaudou Cancan balais tabooAu Belleville swinging rendez-vousJ'veux pas finir ma vie à SingapourJouer au dico manger des petits foursMoi j'veux être zidioteTriplement zidioteGondolée comme une Triplette de BellevilleJ'veux pas finir ma vie à HonoluluChanter comme un zoiseau ça n'se fait plusJe veux ma voix briséeTriplement briséeSwinguer comme une Triplette de BellevilleRefrainJ'veux pas finir ma vie à ConstantinopleC'est bien trop dur de faire des rimes en “nople“Je veux être givrée (Hop!)Triplement Givrée (Hop Hop!)La quadrature des Triplettes de BellevilleJ'pourrai finir ma vie à KatmandouC'est bien plus doux de faire des rimes en “dou“Mais je veux être givréeComplètement GivréeEt swinguer comme les Tripletes de Belleville(Allez les filles!)

thank you, dawn, for the lyrics in french. god, i love that song! it's one of the few songs one can enjoy when it gets stuck in your head, y'know?

Is there any reason it would be innapropriate to take a small child to see this film? Subtitles no biggie, if it makes such use of sound as I've been told, he'll be thoroughly entertained. But there's no like gunfights or random tittehs in it right?
-- nickalicious

I was wondering the same thing nickalicious. As I have a 4 yr old daughter and I think she'll love it, I might at least get her and the boy next door to watch the DVD and see what they think. I'm sure they'll love it.

There's a brief naked Josephine Baker, but it's not really sexualized in anway, nor is it really flashy or anything.

BTW I rented this and watched it one night with Lukas (and then again the next night TWICE), he really, REALLY liked it. He laughed VERY hard at the dog's dream sequences and the thing where one of the triplets went fishing for frogs with dynamite and "the bicycle guys legs were too big".

I really, really wanted the son to get shot like the other biker, partly cuz he deserved it since he was a stupid character, and partly to hurt his bitch momma. The triplets deserved brutal pain, too. Obviously I didn't really like the film. Good sound, though, as someone said upthread, and the soundtrack is excellent.