Much ink has been spilled of late announcing (or lamenting, as the case may be), the death knell of conventional two-dimensional animation. With recent 2-D efforts such as this year's Brother Bear and last year's Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron being eclipsed by the flashier, 3-D computer-generated animation of the Disney/Pixar juggernauts such as Finding Nemo, it would be easy to agree, were it not for Sylvain Chomet's deliriously demented new animated feature, THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE.

TRIPLETS is a strikingly original piece of work that is also a tribute to the great animators of both long-ago and recent yesterdays, with influences ranging from the 1930's hallucinogenic hoochy-koo of the early Fleischer Brothers to the repetitive sight gags of Tex Avery and the stylized line drawings of Chuck Jones' late work, to the ugly sinister pseudo-humans of the Beavis and Butthead-era Mike Judge and the gross-out factor of John Kricfalusi's early Ren and Stimpy cartoons.

The film opens with a black-and-white nightclub scene reminiscent of the pre-Betty Boop Fleischer brothers, in which hugely fat women burst from tiny automobiles to watch the Triplets of Belleville, their skinny escorts lodged in their immense buttocks. Three hawk-nosed chanteuses in the tradition of the Andrews Sisters sing the catchiest nonsense song you'll ever hear, while Django Reinhardt plays guitar with his feet, Josephine Baker reprises her infamous banana dance, and Fred Astaire is devoured by his own shoes. Following this gleeful, if hallucinogenic, opening, let's fast forward to the plot, which is only marginal to the film's whimsically demented brilliance. It involves a small but sweet caricature of a grandmother in the indomitable persona of one Madame Souza, who tries desperately to find something to brighten the spirits of her dour grandson, failing miserably, even with the addition to the household of a cute puppy named Bruno, until a tricycle pulls the boy out of his funk. Fast forward to young adulthood, and the boy, Champion, is being trained by his grandmère for the tour de France. At the Great Race, he is kidnapped by gangsters for nefarious purposes, and his intrepid grandmother, accompanied by Faithful Bruno, doggedly (sorry) sets out to rescue him by heading to Belleville (a sort of New York by way of Montreal, the beacon of which is an obese Statue of Liberty holding an ice cream cone) ) in a rented pedalo boat, in hot pursuit of an exaggeratedly severe ocean liner that literally cuts its way through the sea. She encounters the triplets of the title, and these geriatric divas not only fulfill their quest, but also perform a rip-snorting old bag diva version of Stomp.

One would expect this to be a tired, misfit-boy-triumphs rehash of a million other films, but director Chomet uses this thin plot as a springboard for a dizzying series of sight gags, vignettes, and tributes to everyone from the great pioneers of animation to Jacques Tati, that will leave you breathless. TRIPLETS isn't just the most imaginative animated film of the year, it may just be one of the most imaginative films of any kind ever made.

At times early on, it would seem that Madame Souza's relentless self-sacrifice to the boy's cycling career and Faithful Bruno's descent into old age might cause the film to capsize over into maudlin conventionality, but Chomet rights the ship by providing some of the funniest cartoon gags since Tex Avery left Warner Brothers Studios. Champion, by now a hawk-nosed, grim looking wraith with massive thighs and calves, is attended to after his workouts by having his leg muscles massaged with Grandma's vacuum cleaner and his back rubbed with a lawn mower. Bruno, instead of succumbing to Loyal Old Age, simply grows hugely obese, but no less dogged (sorry) as he continues to wreak loud revenge for a puppyhood incident involving model trains and his tail, on the trains that pass by the house every day by trudging up the stairs. Indeed, Bruno's obsession with barking at trains is so all-consuming that they even occupy his dreams, in which he is himself on a train passing by a house packed with people barking at him. The active imagination and dream life of Bruno are so active, you may find yourself looking at your own dog differently. In fact, it is Bruno who is the star of this film. Bruno departs from cartoon convention in that he's not a wisecracking person in a dog suit like Chuck Jones' Charlie Dog. What makes Bruno's characterization so miraculous is that he's so delightfully, so gloriously, so utterly and accurately, well, doggy.

Chomet's highly stylized drawings don't have the realism of early Warner Brothers, or even the abstract expressionism of late 1950's Chuck Jones cartoons. Indeed, the drawing style resembles a hodgepodge of late 19th century drawings and old Mr. Magoo's cartoons more than anything else, but Chomet uses all the bent and twisted rules of the cartoon universe to create a fantasy world in which a trio of old women dines on frogsicles, a carload of miscreants can be disposed of by simply placing a foot under a tire, and any situation is an opportunity for a gag, however fleeting.

This hodgepodge of a tribute of the greats of animation succeeds not because it points at its references as a means of educating the audience, but because Chomet understands that his creation is the logical outcome of a long and underappreciated tradition and that simple line drawings are capable of creating a completely new reality that the human mind will accept in pen and ink without the requirements of conformation to reality that CGI animation implies. Chomet seems aware of this, as when he turns reality completely on its ear by providing live action movies on television for his cartoon triplets' entertainment.

At one time, THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE would have become one of those cult classics that college kids would see again and again while stoned out of their skulls. Perhaps it's better that this film was released today, when you can go into the theatre stone cold sober and walk out with a stupid grin on your face because you've just had the most delightfully hallucinogenic experience of your life -- and you're still in good enough shape to drive home.

-- Jill Cozzi

Review text copyright © 2003 Mixed Reviews. All rights reserved. Reproduction of text in whole or in part in any form or in any medium without express written permission of Mixed Reviews or the author is prohibited.

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