Bookshelf:

The Triplets of Belleville

It's been plenty busy here lately. With Debbi's car under the weather, I picked her up from home to bring her here for the weekend - with her stuff and the kittens. Not really a big deal, as the trip is only 20 minutes each way. Then she got to try out my car herself as she took it to her fitness class Saturday morning. (No, I wasn't worried. Well, maybe just a little. But not much.)

Saturday afternoon we went looking at cars. Unfortunately for the used car market, Deb is like me: She wants a manual transmission (a.k.a. stick shift). It's just the case that automatics make up the majority of the car market (thank goodness everyone is paying that extra $900 or so per car for automatic, or the economy would probably collapse even more), and there just aren't a lot of manuals out there to buy used. We saw a good-looking Toyota Rav4 with low miles on it, which seems like a decent choice, but frankly might be more car than she needs.

So the basic trade-off is this: Is she willing to put in the legwork looking at used cars to find the one she wants, or does she want to pay the extra amount for a new car which has exactly what she wants?

That's where things stand right now. Still, I think we got a fair amount done for out first afternoon in the market.

Debbi and I haven't been to a movie in quite a while, and with all the car angst, I thought a movie might help get her mind off things for a bit. So after dinner and dessert last night, we went to see The Triplets of Belleville, an animated movie which has received great word-of-mouth.

This is one strange-ass film.

It is French, and occurs in the days following World War II. There is very little dialogue. It concerns a grandmother who raises her orphaned grandson, and introduces him to cycling. This passion takes him to the Tour de France, where he and two other cyclists are captured by the French Mafia and taken to the American city of Belleville. The grandmother follows him there, and meets the Triplets, a girl singing trio from the 1920s who are now elderly, but the four of them - with the grandmother's obsessive dog Bruno - hatch a plan to rescue the son from the bad guys.

The film has a retro, rather sketchy art style, but the style doesn't indicate that its animation is primitive; it can hold up to just about anything being produced today. The subject matter is such that you're rarely likely to react thinking that a particular shot is really cool, but its sophisticated technology in support of its story and vision makes it no less effective than, say, any Pixar production.

The story is by turns hilarious, touching, gross, and perplexing. The love of the grandmother for her grandson, trying to do whatever she can to help make his life fulfilling, is extremely moving, and is the fulcrum of the story. But at its core the filmmakers seem to revel in trying to make you both laugh and feel uncomfortable at the same time, most obviously with the obsession of the dog with barking at trains, and with the culinary inclinations of the Triplets. I think they occasionally go overboard on the gross, but by and large it's well-done.

The behavior of the grandson is hard to understand, as he rarely shows any emotion as an adult, and his capitulation to the Mafia was entirely baffling (as opposed to the other captured riders, who were clearly completely exhausted).

But overall I appreciated it as much for its efforts to push boundaries in animated storytelling as for its gags or animation. It's not going to be a film for everyone, but if you're looking for something different, give this one a try.

Today was the last tournament of the season in my Ultimate Frisbee league, and the season is now over. We got rained out a lot this year, which was a bummer, and the season was shorted than usual. But I'm continuing to gradually get a bit better at the game.

Not that you could have told it from today's tourney, in which I made a few decent plays, but was not a big factor most of the time. Ah, well.

It was, however, a beautiful day out, maybe over 70 degrees. A little warm for me for playing ultimate! But it beats getting rained out again. Subrata and I stayed for the cookout afterwards, and Debbi came along to watch me play, and also to have some of the food. As always, I was pretty well wiped out by the end of the day, and will probably head to bed early. But despite it all I had a good time anyway.

Lastly, I got a few responses to my mysterious abdominal pains early last week. Mostly suggesting that I call my doctor. So on Wednesday I did, although the pains had decreased significantly by then. I talked to a nurse for about 10 minutes, at the end of which - after a battery of questions - she said, "Well Michael, you're a puzzle!" (Debbi said, "I could've told her that!") My doctor himself didn't know, either, so they said to call if it hadn't gotten better in a few more days.

Well, it has gotten better - as playing ultimate today would suggest. I haven't felt anything other than a very small twinge in a couple of days, and today anything I've felt had been completely overshadowed by the aches and pains of frisbee. So, hopefully that's the end of it.

My bet is still that it was small stomach virus. But I guess I'll never know.