You know how sometimes you pick a movie that's a little avant-garde and you really have to be in the right kind of mood to appreciate it? I'm pretty sure that's what happened to me with this movie. Normally, I am all over zany foreign films like Unconscious or Timecrimes or Intacto even if I don't necessarily agree with all the decisions being made by the film-makers. I couldn't connect to this one on any level. First off, there's nearly zero dialogue so no subtitles but there are newspaper headlines about halfway through that no one bothered to translate which frustrated me. The plot is pretty simple: an old lady buys her grandson a bike and a puppy then helps him train for the Tour de France. However, he gets kidnapped during the race by French mafia and the grandma has to track him down to Belleville, which I'm 99% sure was in NYC, where she meets a has-been girl group of triplets. They used to be famous but now seem to subsist entirely on frogs caught in the swamp outside their home.
Between the repetition of their one hit song, train noises, and the dog barking, I was about ready to watch it on mute. I probably would have enjoyed the animation more if I wasn't so annoyed by what I was hearing. Some of the character designs were very interesting and I wish I could have appreciated them more. Honestly, I feel pretty let down by my reaction to this movie. I expected to like it and it just did not capture my interest at all.
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