It's in sepia and scarred with soft, silvery needles, like interference on a TV screen. Retro Renaults screech to a halt alongside a Parisian cabaret. With such an opening, the mind and eyes prepare for the familiar nostalgic and sentimental icons, for perhaps an unrequited love story in Montmartre.
But after three seconds, the French animation "Les Triplettes de Belleville" squashes all such expectations and blows away any lingering whiff of prettiness with a rude gust of Gallic wind. It turns out the Renaults contain hugely buxom ladies and they spill out of the back seats, yanking ridiculously puny husbands in their powerful fists. The last of them waddles into the theater, her escort wedged in between the twin folds of her ample buttocks. Once inside, the orchestra toots and saws on battered, patched-up instruments and on stage the gaudy three-some known as the "Triplets of Belleville" croon their catchy song.
Jazz performer Josephine Baker appears topless, clad only in a skirt made of bananas, and Fred Astaire interrupts his dance routine to get devoured by his tap shoes (that suddenly transform into crocodiles' heads). And so it goes: "Les Triplettes" is all motion and nonsensical wit, and crammed to the gills with French flair to equal Coco Chanel's first little black dress.
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