THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE. Captivating Multi-layered World

A boy named Champion, raised by his grandmother, was not treated kindly by fate. He probably lost his parents in the war. Since his youth, despair and frustration have been etched on his face. He shows no interest in the outside world; the images on the television fail to capture his attention. To somehow activate her grandson, the grandmother buys him a dog. Yet even toward the animal, Champion seems indifferent. Director Sylvain Chomet perfectly captures and defines this state of stagnation. The Triplets of Belleville undoubtedly possesses charm and power. Up to a certain point, it is an almost perfect production.

The only thing that fascinates the boy is the bicycle. He cuts out articles about the Tour de France from newspapers, and eventually, his grandmother gives him the toy he’s been dreaming of. From that moment on, he is completely marked by this object — he exists only because of it and for it. We jump forward several years, and Champion, now trained by his grandmother, is preparing to compete in the most famous cycling race. When he finally takes part, he is kidnapped and taken to America. His grandmother, Souza, and the dog Bruno — whose passions are eating and watching trains — set out to rescue him.

The Triplets of Belleville is a visually stunning animation, created with traditional hand-drawn techniques. It’s an absorbing world — multidimensional, rich in detail, and exhaustively imagined. In a remarkably creative way, we move between various locations, sometimes even entering the absurd imagination of the dog — by far the film’s most intriguing character. Chomet’s inventiveness seems boundless, especially in Bruno’s dream sequences. The director tells his story on a grand scale, expanding this simple narrative with additional layers.

The characters are caricatures, often resembling animals. They stereotypically represent different professions: the mechanic is a muttering mouse, the cyclists look like racehorses, the gangsters are hulking brutes with shoulders higher than their heads, and the waitress is endowed with a generous bosom and bleached hair. It’s a world of distorted proportions — twisted and exaggerated. Chomet portrays the French and the Americans by overemphasizing their most commonly ascribed traits and flaws (the sluggishness of the former, the obesity of the latter).

Watching The Triplets of Belleville is both fascinating and uncomfortable, for it is a film completely devoted to form, governed by emotional coldness. The characters are one-dimensional, often lacking clear motivations. They are symbolic figures, meant to evoke a specific mood through their appearance rather than through psychological depth. It’s difficult to say much about them beyond their physical description. The titular Triplets of Belleville are French women, once vaudeville stars of American stages. The three singers have grown old, lost their fame, and now live in a dilapidated, filthy tenement. They still perform — but mostly in shabby bars and second-rate clubs. In this film, space and costume define the characters.

For Chomet, America is a corrupted, inhuman place. The city to which the characters arrive is built on a hill: the poor, the marginalized, the homeless, and the unemployed live at the bottom, while skyscrapers rise above them into the clouds. The vision resembles that of The Boy and the World from the same year. Yet, unlike the Brazilian animation, Chomet’s film avoids delving into the economic roots of such inequality — it lacks that ideological dimension.

What’s disheartening is the way Chomet portrays humankind — devoid of ambition or empathy, performing actions mechanically. I find the pessimism and lack of reflection assigned to Champion difficult to understand. He is a character whose only skill seems to be pedaling his bicycle. He spends the entire day training, and when he returns home and wants to listen to music on the gramophone, he must power it with a stationary bike connected to the device. His face never shows a trace of emotion — not sadness, disappointment, nor even a hint of satisfaction. As a child, Champion was a depressed loner; as an adult, he displays only apathy and inertia.

It makes no difference to him whether he’s competing in the Tour de France or kidnapped and locked in a cell. The passivity of this protagonist is striking — he quickly transforms from a central character into an object stripped of personality, merely wrapped in human skin.

The Triplets of Belleville, on one hand, captivates with its rich, multi-layered world, abundance of details, and complexity of locations. On the other hand, it frustrates with its absurd final act and the indifference with which the characters are treated. Perhaps Chomet’s primary goal was to achieve visual mastery? In that respect, he succeeds unequivocally.

Narrative, drama, and intrigue are pushed to the background. The focus is not emotional engagement, but painterly impression. The director works with conventionalized images, which he reinterprets and exaggerates: the physical sacrifice of the cyclists, the portrayal of gangsters, the massive ships defying the laws of physics, the degenerate American city, or the repulsive tenement where the Belleville singers live.

This French animation fascinates with its visuals but sometimes irritates with the enigmatic portrayal of its characters. It’s a film drained of emotion but formally inspiring. Perhaps the idea is for the viewer to project themselves into this world — to give it life. Without that, we’re left only with beautiful images and aesthetic satisfaction. Sometimes, that’s quite a lot.