Director: Sylvain Chomet

Summary: An animated comedy set in France during the 1960s, this is the story about a boy called Champion. His grandmother, Madame Souza, encourages Champion to take part in the Tour de France. Unfortunately Champion is kidnapped by gangsters and so Madame Souza and a jazz trio called the Triplets Of Belleville set out to rescue him...

In this animated French film, a boy named Champion trains relentlessly for the Tour de France, with the help of his loyal grandmother and overweight dog, Bruno (who loves to bark at passing trains). When the big race comes, Champion and a few of his fellow racers are kidnapped by some thugs who spirit them off to Belleville (a surreal impression of 1930s-1950s Manhattan) where they are forced to pedal as part of a clandestine gambling operation. Bruno and grandma set out across the sea in a paddle boat to rescue their boy, but once ashore they soon become lost, hungry and penniless, that is until the frog-eating Triplets of Belleville, former scat singing jazz prodigies turned experimental musicians, come to their rescue.
Filled with inspired, twisted imagery, this nearly dialogue-free film is a crowd-pleaser of unusual power, with the strange, measured pacing of a dream, and a great soundtrack of bizarre alternate-reality '30s jazz. It also offers a touching and believable evocation of a dog's life. A great throwback to the time before animation became dominated by CGI effects, BELLEVILLE RENDEZ-VOUS is a very strange, very loving French salute to obsession, affection, and persistence.

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One of the more surprising critical hits of 2003, Sylvain Chomet's Belleville Rendezvousis a French animation that combines occasional beauty and charm with sardonic grotesquerie. People have commented about its bitchy portrait of a USA where everyone is overweight and over-helpful; it is equally nasty about a provincial France, where everything is grey and nothing is convenient. A grandmother and her dog set out to rescue a cyclist who has been kidnapped by the French Mafia and is forced to race endlessly into a receding projected landscape; she is helped by a superannuated trio of female close-harmony chansonniersmarooned in American poverty.

Nothing in this film is mere chance--almost everything we see turns out to be relevant. There is also little dialogue--most of the time, sound effects and music take its place, from the irritating squeak of a mechanic's breathing to the sublimity of Mozart's "Kyrie" as a storm rages at sea. Belleville Rendezvoususes the best of traditional animation techniques and modern technology to produce something sharply funny and beautifully composed; it is not quite like anything you have seen before. --Roz Kaveney

Aspect Ratio:	1.77 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	French
Region:	Region 0
Special Features:	Scene Selection, Original Theatre Trailer, Making Of Documentary, Interview With Director And Art Director, Animation Lesson, Music Video, Making Of The Music Video, Belleville Theme By M, 3 Scenes With Commentary
Subtitles:	English
Year:	2003
Release Date:	January 26, 2004
Runtime:	78 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	T V D 3456
Keywords:	Animated, English, Subtitled, Comedy, General, French, Animation, Belleville, Rendez, Vous
Genre:	Comedy