Triplets of Belleville

2025-07-18

I decided to participate in the IndieWeb Movie Club Carnival for the first time, mainly because it happened to be an animated film that I never got around to watching. This month is hosted by Mark Sutherland This post is written in a stream of consciousness style.

I don't know what I expected when I started Triplets of Belleville. It certainly wasn't whatever I got. I started the movie and hopped on the walking pad with a writing pad to watch a very strange opening. I had to look it up, but it paid homage to famous French performers. My brain dinged it at the guitarist who started playing with his foot to take a smoke (Django Reinhardt).

I like that the world between the opening and the rest of the movie. The opening was surreal and you couldn't really tell if the things were truly happening or if it was an extended metaphor. For example, the shoes coming alive to attack their owner or men from the audience turning to monkeys when they see a risque performance.

Who are these characters?? The Grandmother is Madame Souza based on a later scene that included her participation with the musical acts as the Triplets of Belleville. But how did people figure out Champion's name? The credits I guess? I think Champion must be a nickname or a suggestion of what his motives are? He wants to be a champion! He is unfortunately one of the biggest losers in the movie in many ways.

If I had to place meaning on this movie, I think it is about creatives who are passionate and willing to achieve great things but they may get caught up in the industrial complex in their progress to greatness. We see this purposefully with the Tour de France bikers who participate in televised races and the advertising trucks that celebrate the winners. Without them, they likely won't have sponsors to pay for their racing life styles. On the other hand, we see the distinct lack of sponsors in Champion's life given that he is not a top racer. He is captured and used as a workhorse without recognition or recompense. We see other examples where the beggar on the street of Belleville is a baseball athlete and the Triplets of Belleville live in a run down housing complex. There passions did not pay off. However, the Triplets are seen happy regardless. I would say it is difficult to tell if Champion feels fulfilled endlessly racing despite finally being a winner in his life or death race. One must imagine Sisyphus as happy I guess.

It is not a secret that Sylvain Chomet was an artist under Disney and felt like he was being crushed under their boot especially since the studios moved to 3D animation with the success of Pixar's Toy Story. We can see the subtle jabs at Disney with the mouse-like mechanic who tirelessly keeps up the machinery that chains the bikers to the race. The mouse gets a cut, and so does the mafioso board members who throw their money frivolously even at the expense of the artists' health. I liked the interpretation here as well!

Here are my free form thoughts from said writing pad on the walking pad:

• The opening credit scene had an equation Rμν − (1/2) Rgμν = 8πGTμν

  • This is Einstein's Field Equations to measure the curve of spacetime.

• We see that the opening was a show that Madame Souza and Champion were watching on TV. We can gather that Champion's parents are either no longer alive or has abandoned him with his grandmother. He feels terribly morose and just sits on his bed doing nothing.

  • Souza buys him a dog in the hopes that it cheers him up. He just sits on the bed with his dog instead. The dog, Bruno, serves as a great marker of time with how she grows over time.

• I like the storytelling. There is a lack of dialogue but you can piece things together.

  • Madame Souza is reading a newspaper but we see there is a section snipped from it. Where is the missing piece?
    • We get the answer when Souza makes Champion's bed and a book falls out. It's filled with pictures of people on bikes. It feels like Champion is trying to feel closer to his parents as there is a snipping with the two of them posing next to a bike.
    • He is exuberant about it and clearly makes it his entire personality going forward.

• I think this movie really shows off the idea that "love to the point of invention" in multiple scenes.

  • Souza uses everything at her disposal to help Champion relax and release his muscles from an eggbeater to a lawnmower.
  • After the time skip, we see Bruno waiting for food at the people ignoring her. It took a while to tell why, but Champion is deliberately on a diet where he is sitting on an seat that is tied to a scale. He eats rather slowly and deliberately. When he hits that magic number, an alarm goes off and he feeds the rest of the food to Bruno.
  • Champion continues training by using a pully set attached to the gears of his bike and the Gramophone. It is the same Rivette song as in the actual race as if to get himself into the zone.
    • I took it as him connecting with his Grandmother's love of music and his love of biking.

• Souza is a determined trainer for Champion as she toots her whistle. She is biking, has a clubfoot and keeping pace with him at her advanced age. I think she is the real Champion here.

  • After the time skip, we see Champion training on the road and Souza keeping pace behind him. The scene changes when he is outpacing a bus but he must be in their blindspot because we hear the crunch of a bike as the bus turns.
    • Souza desperately tries to straighten the wheel with her tuning fork, sort of to no avail.
  • I'm just going to say it, despite Champion's name, he is determined but ultimately not great. He seems to be near last place in the Tour de France and seems to be the third person to drop out of the race. He gets kidnapped promptly after.
    • I was wondering what they were going to do with the three worst racers, but it's a feat that still surpasses other people. We can see the rest of the audience watching the race with different body types, none as lanky as the bikers.

• The dog is named Bruno, but I have to set it straight that this dog is clearly female despite the name!
  

• I really like the time skips in this movie.

  • We have Bruno growing up, but we also have the encroachment of the city onto the country side and the trains passing by. Especially when the train is right up to the nose of the house.
  • There is also the seasons changing when Souza cannot find her grandson in Belleville for at least a season where it snows and melts again.

• I read a bunch of online reviews and some of them mentioned that this movie is a force in 2D animation, glory to the 2D animation! Errr it's clearly using 3D at multiple parts of the film, really well I will add, to reduce artist strain. For example, the numerous Tour de Force Bikers, the Boat, and the number of small gears in the Biking torture machine.

• The safety car breaks down because of sabotage from the mafia.

  • Souza tries to rush the driver to fix the wheel but ultimately, Bruno is used as the spare tire.

• It made me sad when Souza opened her wallet and there was only 1 euro in it :(

  • She used her last Euro to help save her grandson and pedaled across the Atlantic Ocean to follow him!
    • Whenever we shoot back to Champion and the other two racers, I think it's so interesting that the other two are perpetually out of breath. They didn't get any food or water or something? They resemble horses a lot more than Champion does, especially when they are chained in the back of the transport truck labelled "Boucherie Longchamp Chevaline" meaning "Horse Butcher Shop"
  • She only had a fly in her wallet and had to camp outside with Bruno when she reached shore too.

• I like that she comforts herself with music in her darkest hour and that led to the Triplets of Belleville

  • They lead her to their home with is in the pits and run down. But they seem happy!
  • 
  • They have their Awards and Autographs from when they were young. I wonder if they were spit out when there were no longer the young pretty act
  • I also wonder if they still play music? All the instruments on their wall are broken
  • Souza tuned up a piano and she played it. I was shocked at how awful she was, it was hilarious!
    • At least two seasons past and she ends up joining the Triplets in their show using mundane objects as instruments
      • Maybe they always played music because one triplet had the Fridge completely clean and clear and used it in the show as the beat
    • I really like the waiter's depiction, he is literally bending over backwards to please his guests. Will do things at the snap of a fingers without the guest asking. Will grovel on his hands and knees when something went wrong.
  • We see snapshots back to Champion where he is hooked up on IV, I thought the mafia was drinking his blood for youth, but no they are feeding him wine directly into his veins.
  • There is a scene where Souza observes the mouse man mechanic exit the building and she stalks him to his barber's appointment. He comically has made protective ears so the barber wouldn't cut him. While Souza is waiting, a boy scout is trying to help her cross and she bats him away. She steals the mouse man's bag when the cost is clear.
    • I like how they animated the mouse man with his nose twitches. I hear that the director had a bad time at Disney and this is likely a manifestation of it and the complicity in the abuse of artists??
  • There are a conveyor belt of Mafia who come in to bet on cyclists
    • They literally put down the guy who fainted down like a lame racehorse omg
  • The Triplets help Souza break Champion out, using one triplet's handy grenade that she uses for frog fishing. I really liked that the audience scattering was an inverse to the opening. The large bodyguards abandoned their small charges to the grenade opposite to how the small husbands abandoned their large wives for a cabaret performance.
  • The car chase where Champion, a biker and a triplet pedal away slowly is hilarious. I love the second to last car going up the hill and flopping over looney tunes style!
  • I really wonder what Champion is thinking through this all, he just continues to cycle until the end.
    • We see him at the end after he is old and tells his dead grandmother that the movie is over now to mirror the start.
      • 
      • Champion is so tall but he still sits on his biscuit tin.
    • The machine really looked like a boat, so I thought they were going to take it on the water!

• Otherwise the architecture of Belleville is so interesting! It is like one of those urban painting styles where the lines are not crisp but has enough form for our brains to fill in the details. The rounded bell towers and pointed castles are great!