🎬 watched Les Triplettes de Belleville (2003)
Released in USA as Triplets of Belleville, and I’m amused to see in UK and Ireland as a third title Belleville Rendez-vous.
As two film enthusiasts living in Los Angeles, my partner and I do not watch many together at home. We make dates to visit theaters, and share scenes while in motion during monday night fort90 film clubs. Sitting down to our modest projected setup and sorting out the audio was a special event and a treat to itself.
First impressions were such fun on a striking and enchanting ride into a surreal and groovy opening scene. The visual and sound design continued to surprise and delight up to the final car chase scene, where the story lost me in an aversion to excessive gunfire and pointlessly violent car chase. The experience overall far surpassed expectations and is one of the most unique animations I’ve enjoyed in a long time!
It has now been a few weeks since watching and the visual experience stuck with me, especially the repeat views from in front of the lead son rocking back and forth on his bicycle. While searching today for loops of these views, I was also reminded how catchy and happy the overall musical themes are from the triplet stars themselves.
The elder triplets finding and adopting the mother and dog through shared music and frog soup are such a sweet story of tenderness and discovered love between strangers. I found this obscured on first watch between the darkness of the mafia kidnappings and humans as horses on bikes.
This is definitely worth re-watching as there is so much detail in the animation style and scenes I know I missed. I expect to further enjoy the elder triplets story, and the irony of their household instruments. At 1 hour 22 minutes, it’s a quick and other-worldy trip into animation land I’m so happy to look forward to again.
Highly recommended for fans Cowboy
Beebop, Tour de France and cycling culture, cityscapes, Miyazaki / Studio Ghibli, and jazzy grooves.
I watched and wrote about this as encouraged by the IndieWeb Movie Club for July, and a personal endeavor to post. Thanks to Mark Sutherland for this month’s suggestion!
#indieweb #IndieWebMovieClub #bike #bicycle #bikestodon #letsgoridebikes #animation