Belleville Rendez-vous [12A]

Flashing back to the roaring twenties, the opening scene displays all the decadence of the time in a wacky and wonderful dance performance. From the start, the realization that this isn't just another Disney animation is abundantly clear. In its own strange and idiosyncratic way this film pokes fun at just about everything, and in so doing leads the viewer on an unexpected journey.

The film follows a young boy, a grandmother and a dog called Bruno through the boy's aspirations and accomplishments of a becoming a cyclist, leading to one gruelling stage of the Tour de France where he is mysteriously kidnapped by gangsters. We then travel to a fictional metropolis - which vaguely resembles New York, Montreal, and the Tower of Babylon - where his grandmother and the dog attempt to rescue him. The richness of the film does not come in the form of plot or dialogue - there is hardly any of that - but from the engaging characters, the entertaining caricatures, and the bizarre way it all fits together.

Another strange aspect of the film is that it uses depth of field in its composition and has a slightly slow frame rate. Most of the colours are slightly subdued giving it a rather timeless feeling. The progression of the film is very smooth with every scene relating to, and fading into, the one immediately after. The use of this - combined with the more traditional practices of photographic filming - demonstrates the flexibility of animation as an artistic medium, and it elegantly refutes those critics who regard 'cartoons' as an out-of-date format because of the advancement of computer graphics.

With so many different motifs and critiques ranging from politics to religion and French culture, this film could be enjoyed as an interesting perspective on the destructive and inhuman forces of capitalism - or just as a weird and comical night out. What ever you think of it though, I can guarantee you have never seen anything like this before.

Simon Whittle (Unverified), 20/10/03

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