The Triplets of Belleville Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

The Triplets of Belleville Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson March 11, 2017

Perhaps in another year Sylvain Chomet's Les triplettes de Belleville (The Triplets of Belleville) would have snagged the Oscar for Best Animated Feature but at the 2004 Academy Awards, it was up against still competition: i.e., Pixar's Finding Nemo, which won as expected. (The other nominee was Disney's Brother Bear.) Triplets also received a nomination for Best Original Song: Benoît Charest and Sylvain Chomet's "Belleville Rendez- Vous," which is included on this disc as an odd music video. This first feature by Chomet was one of the most original animated films in years, a wordless narrative that alternates between starkly different color palettes across various locales. Chomet envisions and conceptualizes Belleville as an amalgamation of Montreal, New York, and Paris. Indeed, the architecture and cityscapes that are derived from these three venues are pretty recognizable through landmarks and other visual markers.

The movie opens with a nostalgic ode to Hollywood musicals of the thirties. There is an establishing shot of the exterior of a palace theater where the Triplets of Belleville (three Parisian women) arrive for a vaudeville performance. Chomet spoofs the red carpet procession in an idiosyncratic way, with shots of unattractive folks getting out of limos and lumbering toward the front entrance. It turns out that this performance is being watched by Madame Souza, a matronly Portuguese woman, on her tiny TV set. She is looking after Champion, her orphaned and rail-thin grandson, who has big cycling dreams. Souza presents him with a tricycle and he eventually also gets a bike. We also follow Bruno, Champion's dog, who ventures out of the ramshackle tenement and into the rainy, noirish streets. Chomet's art department composes beautiful images of subdued grays and blues that resemble watercolor paintings. Chomet also switches to black and white as the dog continues his adventures.

The Triplets and the older woman perform on stage.

There is a sudden time cut to a sun-baked setting where Souza is training Champion to become a world-class cyclist. Sure enough, Champion is competing with other cyclists in the Tour de France. The warm images signal a major shift in tone and atmosphere. The film turns darker again when Champion is unfortunately kidnapped by hoodlums from the French mafia. The thugs take Champion to their hideout. The mafia owns a gambling den and use Champion to ride a mechanical bike for a concert that is all part of the mafia's shady money-making scheme. Chomet employs geometric silhouettes to bring the mafia hoods to life. Souza and Bruno meet the eccentric Triplets and a maître d, who team up to find Champion. The Triplets are an odd bunch as they go fishing for frogs with dynamite. Triplets climaxes with a thrilling chase sequence in which everyone tries to allude the bad guys.

The movie moves so fast that it is difficult to keep up with everything that is going on as you sit and enjoy its visual wonders. Continuity editing helps unify all of these seemingly disjointed and aesthetically different scenes. A person, animal, or thing morphs into a similar shape or object as one shot transitions into the next. Triplets is analogous to a silent movie and it appropriately pays tribute to Charlie Chaplin as well as Jacques Tati. (Watch for picture frames of the two filmmakers and their work.) Triplets is a triumph of hand-drawn animation and originality.

The Triplets of Belleville Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sony Pictures Classics (Sony's subsidiary) brings The Triplets of Belleville to Blu-ray in the US on this AVC-encoded BD-R 25. After much research, I have determined that the film was projected in 1.66:1 across American cinemas and theaters overseas. Various DVDs of Triplets the world over had presented the film in 1.66:1, 1:78:1, and 1.85:1. But it seems from my research that Chomet intended to the film to be seen in 1.66:1 and that is the ratio Sony has framed it on this MOD disc. This marks the third high-def presentation of the film. France Télévisions Distribution put it out on HD-DVD in the fall of 2007 and later issued a Blu-ray in early 2011 using the VC-1 codec. This BD-R uses MPEG-4 and carries an average video bitrate of 24399 kbps. Compression is very good on this practically flawless transfer. The print is very clean and pristine. Detail is outstanding and the vibrant colors pop out during the cycling scenes. I only spotted one shot that had a little dirt in it. The film incorporates 3-D animation direction and you will notice a lot of three-dimesional depth to the images. Chomet can pack a lot of information into the frame, even in the overhead shots (see Screenshot #s 7 and 15). The movie's overture contains vintage black-and-white images that recall the early talkies. The shots contain tramlines but Chomet added them in to give the scene a nostalgic tone (see #s 19 and 20). There is also some sepia worked in to add to the effect.

Sony includes BD-J but only has a mini pop-up menu where you can skip to a total of nine chapters.

The Triplets of Belleville Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sony has only supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo track (with an encoding of 1715 kbps and a bit depth of 16). The Columbia DVD at least had Dolby Digital 5.1. The French Blu-ray utilizes a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, which was presented in theaters at the time. Theoretically, this 2.0 mix is similar to the French R2 Warner DVD, which provided a LPCM 2.0 Stereo option. Despite the mix's limitations, the DTS-HD MA generated wonderful circularity in my home theater. The track had excellent balance across the sound spectrum. There was also some amplification in the rears when the squeezebox played or a song performed. The Triplets of Belleville doesn't really contain any dialogue save for two lines of intelligible dialogue that were translated into English at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2003, according to film critic A. O. Scott. Individual character chatter or crowd murmurings, however inaudible, are heard in French, Portuguese, and English. Sony provides optional English subtitles and English SDH, the latter of which denotes sound effects.

The Triplets of Belleville Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Sony has rehashed only two of its five extras from the 2003 Columbia Tristar DVD.

• The Making of Belleville Rendez-Vous (15:52, 480i) - a decent making-of offering EPK interviews with director Sylvain Chomet, composer Benoît Charest, animator Hugues Martel, and art director Evgeni Tomov. Chomet speaks in fluent English and delivers insights about his autobiographical inspirations and artistic ideas for the film. Presented in 1.33:1. The featurette overall is in both English and French with English SDH where needed.

• Music Video by M: "Belleville Theme" (aka music video for "Belleville Rendez-vous") (3:26, 480i) - a male singer lip-synchs at a therapy session and also appears in some clips from the film. In French, not subtitled.

Sony drops the "3 Scenes with Director's Commentary," "The Cartoon According to Sylvain Chomet" featurette (5:23), and the Theatrical Trailer (2:16) found on the R1 DVD. Also missing are "Making of the Music Video" (3:08), an "Interview with Director Sylvain Chomet" (33:14), and an "Interview with Art Director Evgeni Tomov" (13:31). The latter two are English-friendly and appeared on the UK Tartan Video PAL DVD.

The Triplets of Belleville Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Triplets of Belleville is a delightful and entertaining travelogue film that uses hand-drawn animation with imagination and energy. The movie's eye-candy is on glorious display on this nearly immaculate transfer by Sony. The disc would have been even better if the studio had used an uncompressed 5.1 recording and licensed the supplements from the other DVDs. With the French Blu-ray out of print, this is the version to own. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.