From its initial inception in 2002,the Oscar for Best Animated Featurehas usually been dominated by Disney and/orPixar. With some exceptions sprinkled throughout the years, likeSpirited AwayorRango,many of the best films by Disney and Pixar won the Oscar in a no-real-contest fashion. Sometimes it wasn’t always that bleak, as2004 saw an impressive underdog attempt to take a shot at the kings, a wildly designed French extravaganza calledThe Triplets of Belleville. An indie darling equally indebted to classic silent cinema and every era of French art, it gave Academy voters a flavor much zestier and downright stranger than what the ultimate victor was offering, making it more than just a fascinating footnote.
What is ‘The Triplets of Belleville’ About?
Madame Souza (Monica Viegas) lives in France with her chunky dog, Bruno, and her grandson, Champion (Michel Robin), molding him into the next great cyclist.She’s constantly drilling Champion with exercises and routes around the city in preparation for the Tour de France. In the middle of the big race, Champion gets kidnapped bygangsters, who ship him overseas to the town of Belleville in the United States, looking to use him forillegal gamblingon cycling.Souza and Bruno venture across the ocean to find him, eventually finding help from the Triplets of Belleville, once a headlining musical act inthe 1920swho still have that spark between them. Light on plot and high on whimsy,The Triplets of Bellevilleis a wild romp through a world that exists between history and fantasy, combining numerous reference points that feel clipped together from different postcards.
The Animation in ‘The Triplets of Belleville’ Steals the Show
The real star of the show is the animation style, as the film prefers to usepurely silent storytelling, where any words not sung are incidental to its simple story.Everything in the world ofTripletsis caricaturized and contorted beyond exaggerationinto a fever dream of proportions that goes outside the boundaries of the human form. The cyclists have noodle legs with massively bulging muscles, the skyscrapers are tall enough that they seem to curve outward, the gangsters are all big squares with heads placed in the center of the chest. It’s all on the brink of being surreal, except its sense of world-building is so tactile and every location is so detailed in its specific lived-in nature that it never flies into full fantasia.
These characters are too tired-looking, too unwashed in their clothing, too comfortable in their eccentric behavior, to not feel like real people. One way it maintains this bridge between the real and the imaginative is through its many animated cameos from key figures from early 20th-century entertainment, like film starFred Astaire, dancer and spyJosephine Baker, and guitaristDjango Reinhardt, tying the Triplets' world into a broader history of Bohemian art. It works as both a tribute to the foundations upon whichThe Triplets of Bellevilletakes its own philosophy and as a way to carry animation as a medium forward by bringing in new outside influences that you weren’t likely to see in a Disney film.
‘Triplets of Belleville’ Took Shots At Disney and Lost to ‘Finding Nemo’
Speaking of Disney, a particular irony about the film’s Oscar prospects was thatit pretty viciously takes shots at American culture, and even Disney, specifically. It portrays America as a bunch of obese and scary buffoons (even the Statue of Liberty is holding a cheeseburger), and if you look close enough, there’s anti-Disney slander like a kid at a theme park holding a lollipop that says “SUCKER” on it or literal poop shaped like theMickey Mouselogo. Grotesque fatphobia aside, it’s pretty notable forTripletsto take swipes like these in the context of being a film that the Academy liked. For one thing, Disney slander is always funny and justified, especially sinceTriplet’s biggest competition for the Oscar wasFinding Nemo,which ultimately won it that year. It also positionsThe Triplets of Bellevilleas the outsider in the animation game, one that’s loaded with reverence and touches from past animation giants, like the fluid motion ofRichard Williams, the mutated dimensions ofRalph Bakshi, and the discomforting illustrations ofJohn Tenniel.
When it was nominated for Best Animated Feature,it became the first independent animated film to contend for this award, which is perhaps a large part of why it lost to the Pixar juggernaut. The Academy voting body wasn’t as international back then as it is now, andFinding Nemowas a beloved instant classic, at that, so it’s likelyThe Triplets of Bellevilledidn’t really have a chance of winning, much like howFlowrecently won thanks to a more international voting body. I’m not going to claimFinding Nemoshouldn’t have won, as I personally consider it to be Pixar’s very best film, but it can’t be denied thatTriplets of Bellevillestands out from a crowd far more than any number of Pixar films, providing a funky café aroma flavor that can’t and won’t be replicated any time soon.
The Triplets of Bellevilleis available to rent on VOD services in the U.S.
The Triplets of Belleville
When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters–an aged song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire–to rescue him.
