Belleville Rendezvous

Director
Sylvain Chomet
Country of origin
France
Format
Film
Running time
80 mins
Year
2003

Belleville Rendezvous

By Adam Cook
27th Apr 04

Well spotted all you who are observant enough to notice this animated feature is not from Japan but instead is from France. There are some good animated movies that are produced outside of Japan, the question is, is Belleville Rendezvous one of these movies.

Belleville Rendezvous is about a cyclist (called Champion) that lives with his grandmother and pet dog, Bruno. Champion enters the world famous Tour de France but is captured by the French Mafiosi and used in a high stakes gambling game. It is up to his grandmother and Bruno, along with the Belleville tripplettes to save him.

The plot of Belleville Rendezvous is not that important to the telling of the story, instead the main narrative is used as a way of showing lots of smaller sight gags, and cultural jokes that make fun of many different nationalities and companies.
The characters in Belleville Rendezvous are larger than life caricatures that are archetypal stereotypes such as the broad shouldered mafia henchmen and the weasel like and pompous maitre d'. The caricatures make fun of not only the French (such as the Belleville Tripplettes that eat only frogs), but also Americans in which the entire city of Belleville is based on an obese version of New York, with even the Statue of Liberty being grotesquely over weight. Some may find these caricatures offensive but the film is sure to take pot shots at most demographics so no one is safe from ridicule. The characters do have quite a lot of charm especially the grandmother and the dog Bruno who are a great lead duo. In fact the characters are probably the strongest asset to the film and are one of the only aspects of the movie that will keep you watching.
What are somewhat less successful are the pacing and the introduction of the jokes. At only 83 minutes in length the film is by no means long, yet the experience of watching the movie makes it feel a good 40 minutes longer than it is. The pacing is too slow and there are not enough jokes or action sections to fill out the paper thin plot.
There are some genuinely funny moments in the film, but they are too few to keep an audience interested. Whilst an animated film that enjoys poking fun at different nationalities is rather brave and refreshing, the stereotypical characterisations are the only real jokes on offer to the audience, and can become tiresome and a little too obvious.

The film has only two lines of dialogue throughout the entire movie. The rest is populated by radio and TV broadcast dialogue in French and the occasional pieces of singing that punctuate the action. As the film becomes so reliant on the images on screen to convey the story, the animation has to be spot on every time. Thankfully the animation is very good throughout with many references to the Fleischer Brothers work on Betty Boop and Popeye to name but two. The film also uses some live action scenes intercut with the animation to great effect, and cgi is used sparingly, but helps aid the telling of the story and makes many of the scenes more interesting (such as the storm at sea on a pedal-boat). The blending of different animation styles could have been the films downfall as it could have looked disjointed and devoid of a consistent vision, but thankfully this is not the case. The use of a dull sepia tone throughout the film helps merge all the styles together effectively whilst still making the film visually entertaining and typically French in style.

The music in the film is very enjoyable on the whole. There is an eclectic mix of Parisian accordion music and opera that perfectly encapsulates the action on screen. The music by the Belleville Tripplettes is a traditional vaudeville affair with many of the sounds coming from everyday objects such as newspapers and refrigerators. The theme song to the movie appears throughout in many different forms which every time is slightly altered by the instruments the grandma and the Tripplettes use. It is an intriguing way of fitting the theme song in to the action, and is one of the few interesting moments during the movie, especially the way in which the sounds appear layered.

Belleville Rendezvous promised so much (especially considering the huge critical acclaim it had been receiving), but in the end it proved to be nothing more than an average animated feature that had too few jokes and a plot that was not strong enough to sustain my interest. Visually the film is a triumph, and the two lead characters are very appealing, it is just a shame that the producers did not cut this down to a 45 minute movie instead of trying to prolong it to make a disappointing feature film.

-- Adam Cook 27th Apr 04

Belleville Rendezvous Images