Belleville Rendez-vous Reviews

You'll never have seen anything like this before.

A stunning and unique film that combines both hand drawn and CGI animation to perfection. At no point in this film does the animation look 'rough' or 'sterile' (like many CGI efforts).

The film starts by introducing the main charaters :-

a small old lady with an oversize corrective shoe, a chubby boy with a secret passion for bicycles and a fat dog who barks at (and dreams about) trains.

Without giving too much away the story involves the kidnap of Tour de France cyclists, we are left guessing who would do this and why?

We are also introduced to the mysterious Triplets of Belleville who have a strange fetish for household objects....fridges, vacuum cleaners etc.

Mmmmmm confused? you won't be by the end.

What you get is a surreal almost-silent comedy with an excellent score, addictive storyline and perfect characterisation.

Visually interesting

This was an incredibly imaginative animated film, but was not really to my taste. Visually interesting but the lack of dialogue and use of sounds kind of irritated me. I can see why others would love it though since I've never seen anything like it. Not for a Sunday night when you want to tune out, but for a more intellectual evening instead.

Disappointing, and I SO wanted to like it

Aaah, such promise. The stills I'd seen looked beautiful. And the film was correspondingly beautiful to look at. And the character animation was great too, especially the dog and the frogs.

But, but, but, but, but.

At the end of the day, the story and the pace of the film were just ... weak. Damn. I SO wanted to like this. I did watch it through to the end, but more out of duty and respect than because I actually wanted to. Ah well.

Amazing!!!

This is one of the best animated films I have ever seen. Although the animation is at times reminiscent of older Disney films such as "The Aristocats", it goes off into its own separate, distinct animation at the same time by blending 3D and 2D action.

The story is also wonderful, such wonderful humour, especially the dog's dreams and the scene with the frogs.

Get this film, you won't regret it!!

Highly Original Animation

This will be like no other cartoon you have ever seen. It is stylish innovative and highly entertaining. Beware however - this is not Disney and is not perhaps ideal to dump kids in front of hoping to keep them quiet.

[Highly rated reviewer]

fantastic characters...

...are what makes this film so good. I smile every time i think about the dog barking at the train. Unique, original and distinctive. A breath of fresh air; watch this animated marvel immediately!

Wizard of odd

Bizzare, inventive and darkly comic, Belleville Rendezvous is the perfect antidote to saccharine sweet Disney and proof that Western animation can still be original.

Director Sylvain Chomet - a former Walt employee - has fashioned a film that is very odd but hugely likeable.

There are no princesses in the plot, sleeping or otherwise. Instead, one finds a grandmother with a club foot and remarkable stamina, her stick-thin cycling grandson, a fat dog obsessed with passing trains, an ageing singing trio, the Mafia and the Tour de France.

Along the way are images, often grotesque, that will make you laugh out loud: Fred Astaire being eaten by his own shoes, a man crushed between the cheeks of an enormous woman's backside, a dog doubling up as a spare tyre, a remarkably effective method of fishing for frogs and a song performed on newspaper, fridge shelf, vacuum cleaner and the spokes of a bicycle wheel.

The animation style harks back to an earlier, pre-computer age. And there is an air of melancholy, heightened by the virtual absence of dialogue, resulting in long, contemplative passages of sad Gallic silence.

It has its weaknesses. The climactic chase is a little flat. And the film as a whole is probably too off-beam to ever become a children's favourite, while adults may be turned off because it's a "cartoon".

But for the more open-minded it is a rewarding creation. And the images of Gran crossing a storm-tossed ocean on a pedalo will stay with you for a long time.

It's not bad - it's just drawn that way

Sorry, but I fell asleep through this. Woke up with the menu looping at me and put the DVD in the envelope and walked straight down to post it back.

So, it looks refreshingly different and has a quirky charm and interest since you clearly can't tell what's going to happen or, in some cases, what the hell is going on... but I just didn't care. At some point a film has to set aside its technical merits and stand on its feet as an entertaining or informative or involving piece of cinema and, for me, this just didn't.

I wasn't interested in the characters or the story or the setting or where the story was going. Maybe you'll get it if you're a francophile or an animation buff, but if you're an average punter you'll want to stay well clear and if you're the sort of person who feels they should watch this sort of thing because it is edifying and will do you good (like reading Proust) then by all means give it a go - but don't say I didn't warn you.

I've fallen asleep during several films in my time but this is the first time I did it stone cold sober.

Avoid

Deliciously quirky

This is not your average animation - there are scenes which, like Pixar, take your breath away with the audacity and sheer imagination at work, but don't expect Buzz, Woody, Nemo or something from Uncle Walt - the characters are sometimes strange, the situations more often than not surreal, but the film as a whole is quirky enough to hold your interest for the duration. One for those who like their tales a little off-kilter.

I really wanted to like this film...

... I caught the last few minutes of it on TV a couple of years ago and thought it looked like my kind of quirky film.

The film is typically eccentric Gallic humour, somewhere between Asterix and Monsieur Hulot. It centres on the national obsession – cycling. Despite success in many other sports, the French appear to be fated to stay also-rans in the one competition that really matters - ‘le Tour’ - rather like England and the World Cup.

The animation was faultless, and original, every character being a grotesque caricature, every building appearing to defy gravity.

But the film just did not really work for me. I guess I’m fussy about genres which ideally work best as ‘shorts’ – such as animation, and to a lesser extent, comedy – but I found this too long. I didn’t like ‘les Triplettes’ – their singing grated after a while, and they served little purpose other than to date the film.

Not really my cuppa, but I suggest giving it a look in. Perhaps younger children would appreciate the weird looking characters, but older ones may find it rather dry and lacking any real warmth.