Imagine a writer-director who has a clear idea of what he wants inside his head and has arranged a meeting with a production company who could be interested in financing his project. The writer-director pitches the following premise to the producer: "Well, we plan to blend traditional 2D animation with computer-generated 3D effects and live-action footage in a story about an old lady who trains her grandson to be a Tour de France cyclist and who has to cross the Atlantic ocean with her dog when her champion grandson is kidnapped in a scheme set up by the overseas French mafia who live in Belleville, where our granny meets three aging music hall singers who live on a diet of frogs and who will help her track down her grandson while singing Jazzy tunes. Oh yes, I forgot something important: there is no dialogue except as background noise."

 

Would you invest your money in something like this? What would your chances that you'd make your money back -- let alone make a profit? We can be grateful that writer-director Sylvain Chomet did not only come up with this wacky premise, but also found several even wackier producers who were willing to invest a total of 8 million US dollars to make his dream project come alive. The film is called Les triplettes de Belleville (Belville Rendez-vous in the UK, The Triplets from Belleville in the US). The triplets are three aged ladies, ex-dance hall singers, and though they have kidnapped the title and feature in an ingenuous opening sequence in which we see the triplets singing in their heydays, the film really centres on another elderly lady called Madame Souza, a Portuguese immigrant who has gone from living in the French countryside to living in a Parisian suburb without ever moving. She lives together with her grandson Champion, whose sad face makes it abundantly clear that something not too nice has happened to his parents. To cheer him up, the old lady buys him a little dog and later a bicycle. He is soon smitten with the bike and under the rigorous eye of his granny starts training for the Tour de France. Nomen est omen, the odd couple seem to think.  

 

What happens next you have read in producers pitch and in fact is not really so important. It is clear five minutes into the film that the universe of Madame Souza and Champion is something unique, mixing styles, eras and geography into a cocktail that is both funny and melancholy. Though the film is animated, especially very young children will probably find it too odd and will start moving restlessly in their seats because of the absence of dialogue. For anyone with an open mind however, this film is a hilarious little gem that has succeeded in creating a world that exists only for the 81 short minutes that Champion, Madame Souza and the triplets fly by on the screen. Make sure you do not miss them.

 

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