Characterisation and Caricature in the Triplets of Belleville

“But what I am really interested in is drawing caricature, how far you can push it, seeing if you can achieve something really strong, almost abstract”

(Sylvain Chomet, from an interview with Phillip Moines, Animation World)

For my presentation I focussed on Sylvain Chomet and his film the Triplets of Belleville. I chose this film as it was a childhood favourite, and because I’ve always been fascinated by the style of drawing and characerisation in the film.

In the quote above he mentions approaching abstraction, and I think this sums his approach up nicely, as what he does is walk a fine line between pushing a symbol of a character (the small worried elderly female relative, the thin yet overly developed cyclist, old unmarried women the ingratiating waiter etc) to some sort of utmost stereotype, yet they are still keenly observed as characters, and very believable. An exception to this might be the shapeless mafia, who solidly fall in the comical and relatively empty stereotype. I think there’s a really beautiful level of detail in each and every character in the film.