The Triplets of Belleville 2003
I remember hearing about this movie when it came out, either for the raves from critics or that fact that it was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated feature, only the third time that Oscar had been given. Because there weren’t that many animated features released that year, the category was limited to three nominees, with Pixar’s Finding Nemo and Disney’s Brother Bear being the other two. You could say that put Triplets in great company, or since Brother Bear is widely disparaged as one of Disney’s worst, that it was a weak year. I remember some pushing for Triplets to win, but Nemo took home the trophy.
When Triplets of Belleville appeared in a Screen Pass library, I figured it was a good pick, with an amazing 94% rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a 91 at Metacritic. For whatever reason, 90 is a dangerous range on Metacritic for me, like if every critic that publishes loves something, there could be something really wrong with it. Critics are quick to push a movie that is unique and especially if it is foreign or independent, making their reviews a sales pitch to push a movie on people rather than evaluate whether people will enjoy it. I've watched a number of highly acclaimed European and Japanese animated movies and generally find them painful to watch. Triplets of Belleville was definitely painful for me. The animation is very different and caricatured, but the result is characters that just look grotesque and ugly, either elongated stringy people, fat blobs, or a couple of rectangles. There is hardly a plot and I will try not to give it away, but it serves mostly as a way to introduce you to what seems like mostly unrelated sequences with a dark macabre undercurrent. Considered sort of a comedy, this is really more of a horror movie than anything. There is no humanity in any of the characters, which gives you a little insight into the misanthropy of the creators of the movie. It is French, so maybe it is nihilism? It didn’t work for me. And while the movie is fairly short at only 78 minutes, it is one of the slowest and most repetitive movies I have ever seen. It doesn’t help that there is almost no dialogue, just characters suffering wordlessly. The movie glumly tortures its viewers just as it does the people and animals in the film. All of that said, it does have a unique style. And critics and many movie lovers seem absolutely crazy about it, so it avoids an F. Still, I can only give it a D-.
Written: 14 Aug 2022