The Belleville triplets triple threat

Viva la decadence! Belleville is where it's at!

Warning: this post may contain spoilers, ramblings and pointless warnings.

I just finished watching the 2003 movie The Triplets of Belleville (Les Triplettes de Belleville or Belleville Rendez-vous) and I still have the bone-swinging opening track swimming around in my head. It’s been there all night. I dreamed about it, but of course I did. Everything that makes an impression on me is dream material. I dreamed of beautifully drawn, life-worn characters performing repetitive, disjointed actions. But that’s just how dreams go sometimes.

What a movie! Absolutely, positively decadent, not like a piece of chocolate on a TV ad, mind you. But dead on at showing you by exaggeration all these sides of our lives that are a touch painful to watch or to think about. The little and big things that push our society to burst at the seams with self-complacency. The more exaggerated it got, the closer to real life it felt.

Muddy colors, obsessive-compulsive actions repeated ad infinitum (dear Bruno, the dog, took the cake here), sad lives that were also brimming with hope inside, it all came together seamlessly. I found it sad, funny and quietly powerful.

And I didn’t have to wait long for the best bit, it was right there: the whole opening sequence. I was laughing, drinking in the sights, snapping my fingers, swaying to the beat, and by the third chorus, singing along. Now I need to own the closing-credits version of the song! Sublime!

And let’s see how much of a threat the triplets are: they can sign, dance, cook toads into a four-course meal, play household instruments with swinging perfection, push a car uphill, bike like a Tour de France champion; all that times three, wow!

(Images from the opening sequence)