Madame Souza raises her grandson Champion and tries to make him happier with a baby dog, Bruno. However, the boy remains sad, and the grandmother gives a tricycle for him. The boy gets excited with the gift, and trained by Madame Souza along the years, he finally competes the Tour de France. When Champion is kidnapped by two MIBs from the French mafia, Madame Souza and Bruno travel to Belleville to rescue him, with the support of the elder singers, the Belleville Sisters.

What a wonderful surprise "Les Triplettes de Belleville" is! An original, impressive and very bizarre dark story, that recalls the style of Tim Burton, supported by an amazing music score. The scene on the sea, while playing Mozart's Mass in C Minor, is fantastic and maybe my favorite. The city of Belleville, visibly inspired in New York, with a fat Statue of Liberty, is impressive. The intentional exxageration in the proportions of the ships and sky-scrapers is amazing and stylish. The grotesque and ugly characters are very unusual for heroes and even villains, and this movie is basically the opposite of the animations of Pixar and Disney. Madame Souza has a shorter leg; Champion has deformed legs and long nose; Bruno is horribly fat; the MIBs are plane; their boss is very short; the old singers look like witches; in common, all of them are very ugly. I really recommend this movie for viewers that aim to see a fresh idea of animation, with dark comedy and weird adventure. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "As Bicicletas de Belleville" ("The Bicycles of Belleville")

Within the first five minutes of The Triplets of Belleville I knew I was about to see either one of the worst films of the year, or one of the best- writer/director Sylvain Chomet and art director/designer Evgnei Tomov have created a (animated) world in which they seem to be in love with every frame, every image, every musical note, and at first there is that sense that this is an off-putting style. But soon I realized that what Chomet and Tomov were doing was much like what Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali did with their classic Un Chien Andalou. The story is not incomprehensible because it's simple enough so that a child could follow along, and the strategy thus is to tell it with an artistic, intense, mad-cap, whatever you can think to call it, personalized view on the characters and the environments they get themselves into. That the film is from France adds a charm once the elements get skewed (the animators tackle the Tour de France, big cities, ocean-liners, singers, frogs, and the gangster underworld),and that it doesn't have- and doesn't need- subtitles to tell the story is another remarkable feat.

As the film reached into the last act, I then realized two things- 1) this is one of those films, like Un Chien Andalou and The Wall (the great Gerald Scarfe's influence was one that I guessed, though there's probably more I didn't catch on),that won't appeal to everyone. Those expecting a cute French animated film can expect that, however a movie-goer needs to have an open mind to the material, and that the term "cute" would be taken for granted while being immersed in this film. 2) since the film is made like an original, without much compromise to where the story has to be headed or which characters do and say what, at the least The Triplets of Belleville works superbly to create an overwhelming state of mind for the viewer. Personally, I get exhilarated watching a movie where I don't even WANT to expect where the story is headed. Throughout most of the 80 minutes I felt an un-canny faith in the filmmakers that their oddball, free-wheeling visions wouldn't go up in smoke. And by the end I left wanting more for some reason or another. Like I said, some might be turned sour by the execution of the material, yet for others the fantasy-like nature of The Triplets of Belleville should make for an interesting night-out. For one thing, you won't get those frogs out of your mind very easily. A+

Madame Souza and her grandson used to watch the singing Triplets of Belleville on TV. She raises her orphaned grandson by herself and encourages him to be a great cyclist. He enters the Tour de France. He and others are kidnapped and shipped to a criminal boss who runs his own tour with stationary bikes. Souza and their overweight dog Bruno follow the ship to Belleville where they are befriended by the eccentric frog-eating Triplets of Belleville. While performing with the Triplets at a nightclub, Bruno sniffs out his owner's scent on the mob boss.

I love the unique ugly style that is done so beautifully. It's wonderfully weird and surreal. I don't think the story moves fast enough. There is a lack of urgency at times. There is more than one dream sequence for the dog. This is an unique vision but the slower scenes get a bit repetitive. The lack of dialog is another part of that uniqueness.