BELLEVILLE RENDEZVOUS by Sylvain Chomet - 2003

Belleville Rendezvous by Sylvain Chomet - 2003

Film : Belleville Rendezvous - French word - The name of the film when it was released in the UK.

Translation : The triplets of Belleville

Belleville Rendezvous is an animated comedy film which was created in the year of 2003 by a man called Sylvain Chomet. At this time this was Sylvain's first feature film that he had created.

Background of Sylvain Chomet :

Sylvain Chomet is a french writer, animator, comic director and film director.

Current age : 53

Sylvain Chomet works are known to be very historic and full of its roots of how french culture was in the mid twentieth century.

He was born in Maisons-Lafitte on the 10th of November 1963. Whilst in Maisons- Lafitte he had studied at high school of arts and had graduated in 1982. Later on in life Sylvain had moved out of France to London to work as an animator at the Richard Purdum Studio, at this time he had created a freelance little business where he would work on commercials with big companies such as Renault, Swinton, Swissair and Principality.

When it comes to animation work, Sylvain Chomet has created and formed many pieces and print comics such as :

Secrets of the dragonfly in 1986

Writing a script for a sci-fi comic called the Bridge in the Mud

In 1993 writing a story for Lèon-la-came

This film received a monumental amount of praise and success with critics applauding the unique style of animation Sylvain Chomet had used. This film was also nominated for several awards including

• Two Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature - Lost by Finding Nemo

• And Best Original Song for the film.

Content/ Narrative :

In the film their is not that much dialogue and the narrative is told through music and sound effects. The story shows and presents an elderly woman called Madame Souza and her grandson who is called Champion. Her grandson Champion is isolated and often sad due to his parents dying and his Grandma Souza can notice that, so she tries her best to get him happy again. She gets him to find an interest in playing the piano but sadly that fails. She then gets him a puppy which makes him a little bit happy but after days and days he remains sad again. The grandma is so determined to make him happy that she searches for his diary to see that he has an interest in bicycle racing.

She buys him a tricycle and he is happy once again. We later on find out that he really loves bicycles because his parents were cyclists through pictures in his room. Fast forward to years later Champion is a grown man and becomes a professional cyclist with his Grandma being his coach. She trains him for the biggest competition ever the Tour De France and he enters successfully. Whilst cycling in the competition and trying to reach the finish line, he gets kidnapped by the French Mafia and Grandma Souza is on a challenging journey to rescue him back.

Purpose of the film :

ARTISTIC & SOCIAL - To present a different style of animation and to show animation in a style that is all surrounded by french culture, events that happen in France such as the tour de France, all connected with it roots of how france was in the twentieth century. Also creating a style of animation where it was not needed to have a proper narrative throughout the whole film, where sound effects, movements and music can take the place of all those main features.

The cinematic techniques Sylvain Chomet uses

In the 1st scene the tempo starts slowly and then gradually becomes faster, this is shown through the music, whilst this is happening the camera slowly pans down a tall building showing the title of the film ''BELLEVILLE RENDEZVOUS'' and with a lit up sign saying welcome to Belleville Rendezvous welcoming people into the 1st scene. The camera then begins to pan down the building faster showing a glimpse of a busy street. The scene then changes to show the outside of a theatre which has the names of the main act that are performing which is the ''Swinging Belleville Rendezvous avec-les- triplettes. We then see cars one by one stopping outside the venue, whilst their is huge crowds divided on each side in red barricades, screaming and shouting as each car pulls up, With each women stepping out their cars with a date, the crowds cheer but when it comes to the last woman the crowd becomes quiet as they find out her date is unconscious and in between her but cheeks.

Later on in the scene the tempo seems to get faster, as the other acts perform in the theatre one by one showcasing their different types of talent. Moving swiftly to the beat that is being used over their performance which is the triplets singing.

Use of colors -

The colours in the this scene were very black and white, hinting that what is shown is

old footage or a performance that was performed in another era. We see this as this scene slowly transitions into the place of an old television that is being watched by Grandma Souza and her grandson Champion. The transitions and colours used helped informed that what they were watching was old footage. At first the scene was black and white and even sometimes brown, until at the end where the scene got grainy and had smudges indicating that this was in-fact an old television program being watched.

Normal black & white with a small hint of brown.

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The Visible Transition.

To a grey and grainy old television look and appearance.

I really liked the way he did this transition, as it was in-sync and flowed really well into the next scene without having to explain what was happening. In this scene the positioning of the camera was made to appear that this is all being looked on and watched on by our two main characters.

After the scene transitions into a television we then see Grandma Souza and Champion watching the television in their kitchen, with Souza questioning Champion about wether he thinks the show is over, the colours in this scene are very dark and there appears to be a very strong tint of the color blue and green, making the atmosphere appear cold, sad and gloomy whilst Souza looks and analyses her Grandson's face, wondering what she can do to make him happy again.

The use of color helped emphasize and made it clear to the audience that the environment that they are living in is quite cold and lonely along with the Grandson being lonely too. I really liked the technique Sylvain used in order to show how the characters emotions are, and what they environment is like where they're living, through the use of colors and lighting it really added to the scene.