Disney for the Pretentious

It's French. Very, very French. The Triplets of Belleville is a tour de farce about a Tour de France racer. It's an animated journey through the obscure, the obscene, and the obese. It's a wordless yet grunt-filled mockery of American corpulence and French oenophilia (the love of wine). You'll leave the theater wondering, "What the hell did I just see?", but with a giant grin across your face.

There are many characteristics of The Triplets of Belleville that will make it unappealing to most adult American audiences. It's foreign, and French at that. It's a cartoon. Lastly, it's practically wordless. On this occasion, however, broaden your interests and see a film that by any other stretch of the imagination would be considered unwatchable.

Director Sylvain Chomet, a Canadian animator, has based his film on mime and character-acting instead of using extensive dialogue. The beautifully drawn facial expressions and audible grumbles provide all the subtext to the characters' actions, making subtitles unnecessary.

The cartoon begins with an off-the-wall stage show, starring the famous Triplets as they scat-sing in front of distinguished gentlemen who turn into literal horny monkeys at the sight of naked women. A topless Josephine Baker and a Fred Astaire with carnivorous tap shoes dance alongside the Triplets in inspired cameos, setting the zany tone for the rest of the film.

Watching the variety act are Madame Souza and her orphaned (exactly how is unclear) grandson, Champion. Forlorn and depressed, Champion finds little that can excite him in the rural suburbs of Paris. Madame Souza makes many attempts to cheer him up, but not even a cute-as-a-button puppy named Bruno can lift Champion's spirits. Madame Souza finally finds the key to her son's happiness when she happens upon a scrapbook filled with biking memorabilia.

Cut to the present time, as Champion fulfills his name's promise as a Tour de France winner. His grandmother relentlessly trains her grandson, who is now lanky with grotesquely overdrawn calf and quadriceps muscles. The formerly pint-sized puppy is now a massive and bloated canine whose daily routine consists of waiting for the next commuter train to pass by the window so he can bark at the unsuspecting Parisians.

The actual plot, if that's what you'd call it, takes off when Champion is kidnapped by French mafiosos as a part of an elaborate underground gambling scheme. Madame Souza and the dog Bruno engage the kidnappers on a bi-coastal adventure, chasing after Champion all the way across the Atlantic to Belleville. There, they meet up with the same singing triplets from the opening sequence. Now, however, the triplets are old and frail, and spend their time eating frogs harvested from the water with pipe bombs.

Yes...it's that odd. The triplets' affinity for frogs is only a part of the quintessentially French character of The Triplets of Belleville. The city of Belleville is a disfigured conglomerate of Montreal and New York. A few anti-American jabs aside, the truly French nature of the film comes through with the endless wine and fat jokes.

The skyscrapers in the ominous, mafia-riddled metropolis are shaped like wine bottles while its citizens are as portly as Al Roker (pre-stapling, of course). Even Belleville's version of the Statue of Liberty is an obese woman whose tablet, instead of reading "July 4, 1776" in Roman numerals like the real statue, reads the Belleville motto, "In Vino Veritas"-in wine we trust.

The Triplets of Belleville is a ridiculous romp through nothingness. You might try to explain the images flashing before your eyes, but by the time Madame Souza crosses the Atlantic in a paddleboat, you realize it's pointless. The climactic chase scene near the conclusion of the film is the piece de resistance of absurdity. The affect is baffling. Your cheek bones will hurt from just grinning at the pure creativity of Chomet's imagination.

The movie scene in late December and January is often filled with films catered for Oscar nominations, meaning they are often preachy and melodramatic (see Big Fish). To fill the void of fun and interesting movies, studios offer mindless family entertainment, see Cheaper by the Dozen, or moronic action flicks, see Torque. Even worse, some of them might even star Ben Affleck (Paycheck). Triplets of Belleville is precisely the film you'll need as a good-natured, whimsical experience.