The Triplets of Belleville

Very early on in the year, I was sent Belleville Rendez-vous on DVD as a gift from a family member. This is a film by Sylvain Choment and having never seen it before I was intrigued just by the front cover. I could already see the range of diverse character designs that would have a part with in this story.

Before even watching the film, I was already in love with the extreme and exaggerated features given to these characters. From this one image, I could see that each character took on a different shape an size, a different colour scheme, but they still all worked really well together. One of my favourite things about these designs, just from looking at the image above, was the exaggerated facial features. Weather a character had an abnormally large nose, long face, or rounded face, I believe all of these factors poured so much personality into each character, even though I had not yet seen them move. 

Another thing I loved about these characters on the front cover, was that it was not completely clear which characters were "good" and which were "bad" and I found this to be very interesting. I liked the fact that even the main characters that were not supposed to be threatening at all, still had a very uneasy style about them.

One of my favourite characters was the man above, who is a cyclist in the Tour de France. His physical build was so exaggerated and hunched, it allowed him to look almost malnourished and broken, which I think is what the designers were aiming for. I felt physically uncomfortable and exhausted myself during the scenes which consisted of this character slowly but surely peddling his bike up a steep hill.  I also found the shape and build of the French Mafia characters to be incredibly effective. The fact that they were not only taller, but their shoulders protruded above their heads, along with their abnormally long faces immediately indicated that they had authority. 

This animation consisted of some very detailed and well thought out environment design. My favourite of these is the Grandmothers house. It is a small cluttered home, filled with everything and anything. One of the main aspects that in my opinion made this animation so successful, was the slightly dreary colour schemes, which appeared to do a good job of separating the outdoors to the indoors. 

There is very little dialogue in this animation, and I think the visual side alone does an excellent job of telling the story, as well as portraying the relationship between the characters. Even though we rarely see much communication between the grandmother and her grandson, it is still clear that she cares for him very much. This animation encouraged me to want to experiment more with colour schemes, and to not always settle for the first colour scheme that I feel is appropriate. It has also made me want to create more exaggerated characters, and to not be afraid to try and push the design boundaries. In my opinion, that it why this animation has turned out so well, because it looks completely unique and I haven't seen anything like it before.