24 June 2007
Belleville Rendez-Vous
Les Triplettes de Belleville
Sylvain Chomet, 2003
Belleville Rendez-vous is one of the most enthralling, most bizarre film I have ever seen. It is an eighty-minute animation by French comic book artist, Sylvain Chomet. It is richly detailed, highly amusing and when it comes to characters, extremely well observed.
The rather unusual plot involves the tiny, club-footed Madame Souza preparing her orphaned grandson, Champion, to compete in the legendary Tour De France. However, while racing in the Alps, Champion is kidnapped by the French mafia and taken by sea to the city of Belleville. The story follows grandma Souza and pet dog Bruno in their daring, dangerous rescue, helped by the Belleville sisters, an aged musical trio who once performed with Fred Astaire.
A unique feature of this film (as well as its bizarre storyline) is that there is virtually no dialogue. Chomet claims that because of this, music and sound was a vital instrument in the film, with composer Benoit Chores creating music from the most unlikely everyday objects, including a Hoover!
What I found particularly engrossing about this film was the visual style created by the hand drawn animation, which seems almost antiquated. The use of colours varied from nostalgic sepia tones when showing Champion as a little boy, contrasting with the dark and cold look of Paris suburbia. We see the bright oranges of hot sunshine at the Tour de France conflicting with the ominous, dark greens of Belleville at night.
The characters themselves are extremely appealing and almost loveable, Bruno the dog is extremely overweight with skinny legs, the tripplettes are tall almost witch like and Champion has the typical look of a French cyclists, tall and thin with exaggerated, protruding muscles. Exaggeration seems to be a key style in Chomet’s illustration, with characters having a clearly identifiable shape. For example, the French mafia are so square that when they walk together they become a rectangle of black with moustaches and galloisse cigarettes. This exaggeration of geometric shape may be a way in which the illustrators have made it easier for the audience to identify characters in a film that has no dialogue.
Belleville has been expressed in extreme detail. Art director, Evgeni Tomov, was asked by Chomet to make the city of Belleville a combination between Paris, New York and Montreal. We see high-rise skyscrapers, an obese statue of liberty (eating a hamburger) and an eerie green tinge to the buildings, perhaps to reflect night time lighting in cities such as Toronto and Montreal. The key theme of Belleville is the idea of over consumerism, with the city being full of extremely obese, wealthy looking characters. There are 1200 scenes in the film, and 900 original backgrounds were drawn which gives it an enthralling sense of detail
This film is full or extremes and an exaggeration of stereotypes, from Champions oversized hooked nose, to the triplettes obsession with eating frogs in as many different forms as possible (they even eat frog lollypops).
This is the kind of film, which encourages me to want to become a more competent illustrator. The characters in this animation are so full of life that you almost believe they are real people with real lives. When we see a pan shot across a young Champion’s room we see boyhood images of newspaper cuttings and posters of bicycles, we see photographs of Champion with a bucket and spade at the beach, we see a picture of his late parents on a bike. The characters in this film have a story, they are fragile, which I feel makes the viewer warm to them and in return makes Belleville Rendezvous an engrossing and emotional film.
Belleville Rendez-Vous
Les Triplettes de Belleville
Sylvain Chomet, 2003
Belleville Rendez-vous is one of the most enthralling, most bizarre film I have ever seen. It is an eighty-minute animation by French comic book artist, Sylvain Chomet. It is richly detailed, highly amusing and when it comes to characters, extremely well observed.
The rather unusual plot involves the tiny, club-footed Madame Souza preparing her orphaned grandson, Champion, to compete in the legendary Tour De France. However, while racing in the Alps, Champion is kidnapped by the French mafia and taken by sea to the city of Belleville. The story follows grandma Souza and pet dog Bruno in their daring, dangerous rescue, helped by the Belleville sisters, an aged musical trio who once performed with Fred Astaire.
A unique feature of this film (as well as its bizarre storyline) is that there is virtually no dialogue. Chomet claims that because of this, music and sound was a vital instrument in the film, with composer Benoit Chores creating music from the most unlikely everyday objects, including a Hoover!
What I found particularly engrossing about this film was the visual style created by the hand drawn animation, which seems almost antiquated. The use of colours varied from nostalgic sepia tones when showing Champion as a little boy, contrasting with the dark and cold look of Paris suburbia. We see the bright oranges of hot sunshine at the Tour de France conflicting with the ominous, dark greens of Belleville at night.
The characters themselves are extremely appealing and almost loveable, Bruno the dog is extremely overweight with skinny legs, the tripplettes are tall almost witch like and Champion has the typical look of a French cyclists, tall and thin with exaggerated, protruding muscles. Exaggeration seems to be a key style in Chomet’s illustration, with characters having a clearly identifiable shape. For example, the French mafia are so square that when they walk together they become a rectangle of black with moustaches and galloisse cigarettes. This exaggeration of geometric shape may be a way in which the illustrators have made it easier for the audience to identify characters in a film that has no dialogue.
Belleville has been expressed in extreme detail. Art director, Evgeni Tomov, was asked by Chomet to make the city of Belleville a combination between Paris, New York and Montreal. We see high-rise skyscrapers, an obese statue of liberty (eating a hamburger) and an eerie green tinge to the buildings, perhaps to reflect night time lighting in cities such as Toronto and Montreal. The key theme of Belleville is the idea of over consumerism, with the city being full of extremely obese, wealthy looking characters. There are 1200 scenes in the film, and 900 original backgrounds were drawn which gives it an enthralling sense of detail
This film is full or extremes and an exaggeration of stereotypes, from Champions oversized hooked nose, to the triplettes obsession with eating frogs in as many different forms as possible (they even eat frog lollypops).
This is the kind of film, which encourages me to want to become a more competent illustrator. The characters in this animation are so full of life that you almost believe they are real people with real lives. When we see a pan shot across a young Champion’s room we see boyhood images of newspaper cuttings and posters of bicycles, we see photographs of Champion with a bucket and spade at the beach, we see a picture of his late parents on a bike. The characters in this film have a story, they are fragile, which I feel makes the viewer warm to them and in return makes Belleville Rendezvous an engrossing and emotional film.
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