An orphaned boy, Champion, is raised by his grandmother, Madame Souza. Her gift of a tricycle starts a craze for cycle-racing that becomes the cornerstone of their life together. After years of relentless training, Champion makes it to the Tour de France, the toughest cycling event in the world. Alas, Champion and a handful of other top competitors are mysteriously kidnapped by a pair of sinister crooks with hangdog expressions. Supported by her faithful sidekick, her fat and flatulent dog Bruno, Madame Souza sets off to rescue her beloved Champion. An epic adventure leads them across the Atlantic to a vast seaport metropolis named Belleville, headquarters of the notorious French mafia. Lost and confused in the threatening darkness of the great city, Madame Souza and Bruno encounter the Belleville Triplettes, who, in their youth, were a glamorous close-harmony act. Now, these three batty old women are now a bizarre jazz combo. Mme Souza joins the band. At their very first gig, she discovers Champion is being held captive by the mafia Godfather himself! All hell breaks loose, and the chase is on! Do Mme Souza, her dim dog, and the Triplettes have what it takes to outsmart the ruthless French mafia and release poor Champion from its clutches?

*NO NEED FOR SUBTITLES AS THERE IS VERY LITTLE DIALOGUE.

Les triplettes de Belleville (2003)
  • Rating: (25,658 votes)
  • Runtime:80 minutes
  • Director: Sylvain Chomet
  • Countries:France, Belgium, Canada, UK
  • Actors:
    Triplets (singing voice)
    Béatrice Bonifassi
    Triplets (voice)
    Lina Boudreau
    (voice)
    Michèle Caucheteux
    (voice)
    Jean-Claude Donda
    Triplets (voice)
    Mari-Lou Gauthier
    (singing voice) (as Charles Prévost Linton)
    Charles Linton
    (voice)
    Michel Robin
    (voice)
    Monica Viegas
  • Genres:Animation, Comedy
  • Producers:
    Didier Brunner
    producer  
    Paul Cadieux
    co-producer  
    Regis Ghezelbash
    associate producer  
    Colin Rose
    associate producer  
    Viviane Vanfleteren
    producer  
  • Plots: Madame Souza, an elderly woman, instills in her grandson Champion (for who she acts as his guardian) a love of cycling. As a young man, he does become a dedicated road racer with his grandmother as his trainer. During a mountainous leg of the Tour de France in which Champion is racing, he goes missing. Evidence points to him being kidnapped. Indeed, he and two of his competitors were kidnapped, the kidnappers who want to use the threesome's unique skills for nefarious purposes. With Champion's overweight and faithful pet dog Bruno at her side, Madame Souza goes looking for Champion. Their trek takes them overseas to the town of Belleville. Without any money, Madame Souza and Bruno are befriended and taken in by three eccentric elderly women, who were once the renowned jazz singing group The Triplets of Belleville. The triplets help Madame Souza and Bruno try to locate and rescue Champion. Written by Huggo
Les triplettes de Belleville
  • User's comment:the best neo-surrealistic animation I've seen since The Wall- a unique movie-going experience by MisterWhiplash

    Within the first five minutes of The Triplets of Belleville I knew I was about to see either one of the worst films of the year, or one of the best- writer/director Sylvain Chomet and art director/designer Evgnei Tomov have created a (animated) world in which they seem to be in love with every frame, every image, every musical note, and at first there is that sense that this is an off-putting style. But soon I realized that what Chomet and Tomov were doing was much like what Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali did with their classic Un Chien Andalou. The story is not incomprehensible because it's simple enough so that a child could follow along, and the strategy thus is to tell it with an artistic, intense, mad-cap, whatever you can think to call it, personalized view on the characters and the environments they get themselves into. That the film is from France adds a charm once the elements get skewed (the animators tackle the Tour de France, big cities, ocean-liners, singers, frogs, and the gangster underworld), and that it doesn't have- and doesn't need- subtitles to tell the story is another remarkable feat.

    As the film reached into the last act, I then realized two things- 1) this is one of those films, like Un Chien Andalou and The Wall (the great Gerald Scarfe's influence was one that I guessed, though there's probably more I didn't catch on), that won't appeal to everyone. Those expecting a cute French animated film can expect that, however a movie-goer needs to have an open mind to the material, and that the term "cute" would be taken for granted while being immersed in this film. 2) since the film is made like an original, without much compromise to where the story has to be headed or which characters do and say what, at the least The Triplets of Belleville works superbly to create an overwhelming state of mind for the viewer. Personally, I get exhilarated watching a movie where I don't even WANT to expect where the story is headed. Throughout most of the 80 minutes I felt an un-canny faith in the filmmakers that their oddball, free-wheeling visions wouldn't go up in smoke. And by the end I left wanting more for some reason or another. Like I said, some might be turned sour by the execution of the material, yet for others the fantasy-like nature of The Triplets of Belleville should make for an interesting night-out. For one thing, you won't get those frogs out of your mind very easily. A+


  • Also known as: The Triplets of Belleville (Australia - imdb display title), The Triplets of Belleville (International - English title), The Triplets of Belleville (UK - new title), The Triplets of Belleville (USA), Belleville Rendez-Vous (Portugal - imdb display title), Belleville Rendez-Vous (UK), Bienvenidos a Belleville (International - Spanish title), Bienvenidos a Belleville (Spain), Las trillizas de Belleville (Argentina), Las trillizas de Belleville (Mexico - imdb display title), Trio z Belleville (Czech Republic), Trio z Belleville (Poland), Το Τρίο της Μπελβίλ (Greece), Трио из Бельвиля (Russia), Appuntamento a Belleville (Italy), As Bicicletas de Belleville (Brazil), Belleville randevú - Francia rémes (Hungary - imdb display title), Belleville'de randevu (Turkey - Turkish title), Bellevillen kolmoset (Finland), Das große Rennen von Belleville (Germany), To trio tis Belleville (Greece - transliterated ISO-LATIN-1 title), Trillingarna från Belleville (Finland - Swedish title), Trillingene fra Belleville (Norway), Trillingerne fra Belleville (Denmark), Trion från Belleville (Sweden),

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