ABSTRACT
Belleville Rendez-Vous (known in the United States as The Triplets of Belleville) by Sylvain Chômet (2003) is a work of whimsical originality, and a tour de force of feature-length animated filmmaking. Chômet’s cinematic palette interweaves audio-visual and narrative inventiveness with technical bravura. Together, these elements are informed by a wide range of sociohistorical, cultural and aesthetic influences, as various as Betty Boop, Jacques Tati and European comic books, the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, the early animation pioneer Winsor McCay, Disney, Czech animator Karel Zeman, Terry Gilliam, Nick Park, as well as musical referents including Mozart, J.S. Bach, Django Reinhardt, the Andrews Sisters, Fred Astaire and Josephine Baker.
