Tripling Charm

The Triplets of Belleville, from 2003, is a weird and charming film; and I stress both those adjectives equally. It’s an 80-minute animated picture that follows its own odd, strange, winding path; unlike American feature-length animation, it isn’t cute, corny, or jokey. Nor do I get from it that sense of audience-tested reactions or of tightly mapped, corporatized plots inserted like a steel spine, as in such American franchises as Shrek, Toy Story, or Despicable Me and the accompanying Minions (though I confess, I adore the Minions themselves, who, in their loose, jumbled, found-art wacky way, might just fit into the Belleville world). Instead, Triplets is quirky; it takes its own time, it follows its own eccentric rhythm, it has its own look. It’s practically sui-generis, and the closest comparison to it might be the films of that peculiar, unique, in-a-world-of-his-own French genius, Jacques Tati—whose own films were similarly odd, ambling, and original, peering at life through a…

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