Jason C
Reviewer

      With “Finding Nemo”, Pixar cemented its affiliation with Disney and proved that a film about a fish can ride a tidal wave of critical praise into becoming the most successful film of 2003. Yet after “Finding Nemo” began breaking DVD sales records, Pixar and Disney reportedly split, begging the question: What’s next for the world of animated film?
 
      Hollywood critics claim that hand-drawn animated films aren’t pulling their weight anymore, and that Pixar heralded a new directive for animation: Go CGI or bust. However, those critics are prone to neglect factors contributing to each film’s success or failure. Technological marvels such as “Finding Nemo” and “Shrek” boasted brilliant writing and an unusual surge of energy that catapulted them to fame. Hand-drawn animation films such as Dreamworks’ star-heavy but interest-lacking “Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas” are awful and worthy of critical and commercial disdain.
 
     Thankfully, foreign films such as last year’s Oscar-winning “Spirited Away” and this year’s “The Triplets of Belleville” have arrived in America to reinvigorate the world of hand-drawn animation. Rarely does the word “intoxicating” serve as a compliment, but “The Triplets of Belleville” opens with a rousing revue that successfully mimics the Betty Boop era of Hollywood animation and never stops chugging along throughout its short 80 minutes. To call “Triplets” a musical would be akin to calling “Spider-man” an insect documentary. Although the film has an exciting soundtrack and an Oscar-nominated theme song prone to be lodged in every viewer’s mind for days, dialogue is almost non-existent, and the theme song comes out only through bits and pieces during the narrative. Although the opening features caricatures of Fred Astaire and Josephine Baker, these relics of Hollywood’s past still seem provocative, especially as Baker’s caricature dances topless in an animalistic manner worthy of a NAACP protest.
 
      The film focuses on benevolent Madame Sousa, who aims to make Bruno’s life one filled with the splendor of cycling. Training him day in and day out, she uses appliances such as a vacuum, an egg beater and a lawn mower to tone him into shape. Then one day when he is in a race, the French Mafia (caricatured as shoulderless monstrosities of men protecting small bosses) captures Bruno to create a side-betting arena where mob bosses force bikers to race in front of a movie screen simulating a race. Madame Sousa, along with the fattest dog in animated history, makes her way to Belleville to save Bruno.
 
      The concept of losing a child and then employing a comic relief animal to find him and remove him from captivity might sound like a particular fish film, but this is definitely an animated film for adults. That isn’t to say Triplets is a sexual opus like the terrible “Cool World”, but the film’s PG-13 rating most likely comes from the topless dance. The film also employs tongue-in-cheek parodies of Disney and American culture, particularly with a gluttonous Statue of Liberty who’s stuffing a burger down her throat.
 
      The animation continues the gluttonous depictions of people as every woman seems to weigh more than 1,000 pounds and has breasts the size of watermelons.
 
      In the opposite vein, one of the supporting characters is portrayed as a mouse of a man, both through his size and his constant squeaking. Through these humorous visuals and a plot line that brings joy into the dull world of Belleville, “Triplets of Belleville” is a crowning achievement of animation that Hollywood should take notice of before Americans go across the seas for the next Walt Disney-esque production.