Award-winning French animation from Michel Ocelot, an enchanting oddity conceived in a unique style that expands off a platform of classic silhouette technique into full dimensionality in physically stunning photo-realistic recreations of La Belle Époque Paris. Breathtaking. Barely released Stateside, the film has two cultural ‘bumps’ that may have limited exposure. One comes right at the start as our charming heroine, Dilili, an African from Kanak comes to Paris as part of a Living Village ethnological display. An exhibit uncomfortably close to the once popular living zoological dioramas of ‘primitive peoples.’ Unnoticed in France, it comes across, at best, as tone deaf over here. ‘Bump’ #2 is the main plot, a kidnaping epidemic of young girls, stolen off the streets by The Society of Male Masters, out to halt Women’s Advancement while training new divisions of handmaidens & living footstools. Yikes! Okay, not the best idea in here. But everything else a visual astonishment, as Dilili & new pal Orel, a tricycle courier, visit architectural landmarks and half the immortal cultural talent in Turn-of-the-Last-Century Paris. A tour de force tour for the ages, with nifty celeb spotting (Proust to Debussy, Rodin to Toulouse-Lautrec, dozens more*) cleverly larded into the plot. Story takes precedent in the last act, gorgeously designed but not quite as much fun,. Yet anyone with a taste for late 19th century Paris will be pea green with envy as Dilili and her one-in-a-million tour guide Orel do the town.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Naturellement, Sarah Bernhardt shows up, but with her name consistently mispronounced as Sarah Bernard on the English-language track. (They get it right on the French soundtrack.) With dozens of people involved in translation & recording, had no one ever heard of the most famous actress of all time? Typical, but depressing.
LINK: This trailer comes without English subtitles, but has far better resolution than the one that does. Deal with it! (Both subtitled & English-dubbed discs & streaming available.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVRUX8tloNw
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Structurally, culturally and developmentally, this isn't so far from BABAR!
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