Why isn’t Madame Souza entered in The Tour de France? She kept pace with Champion during his whole training rides, and that with a bum foot and an old tricycle. At the end of the ride, when he could barely stand from exhaustion, she gave him a massage, served him dinner, fixed his bike, and put him to bed. And had no dinner herself, that I could see. She also pedaled across the entire Atlantic on a crappy pedalo.
Okay, so she’s not in the Tour de France. When she and the triplets are trying to rescue Champion’s sorry ass from the mobsters, they could have at least put her on the “cycling machine” to help pedal it away, given her cycling stamina. Instead, one of the old triplets is the pedaler.
I’m not sure that very much of the movie makes sense if you analyse it too thoroughly. What worried me was the shape of the ocean liner: very tall and very thin. A real ship built like that would have immediately tipped on its side. But I still enjoy watching the film.
My favorite bits were when she used a tuning fork to tension the spokes, and a vacumm cleaner to massage his calfs. The crippled fingers on the guitarist in the opening sequence is a nice touch as well.
Overall a wonderful movie. You do have to buy into its world wholeheartedly, however.
Madame Souza has to be considered a caricature of the doting French mother who pampers her children and neglects herself. Nobody would ever think of her in any role outside that of doting mother. That’s her life. Only her children can go into the world and succeed. It’s part of the joke that she can do everything as well as them without anybody noticing or giving her recognition for it.
And how, how, how, how could “Belleville Rendez-Vous” not have won the Oscar for Best Song? How? :smack: :o :eek:
In fact, I’m pretty sure the entire movie–and particularly the physics of it–falls completely apart if you try to analyze it at all. The animation is bizarre in a Dali-esque way and obviously not intended to be any kind of realism, especially the end chase scene, which I thought was an utterly brilliant parady of standard movie chases where the heros keep being chased by bad guys and are always inexplicably able to stay just out of reach. Along with McQueen’s wild ride through San Franscisco in Bullet, Mel Gibson outrunning the mutant bikers in The Road Warrior, and the Frankenheimer-orchastrated squences in Ronin, it’s one of the great chase scenes in cinema.
Regarding the o.p.'s questions: first, she’s not in the Tour De France 'cause it’s not her dream; it’s her grandson’s. She’s the dedicated parent figure who lives to provide for her child. And second, she was far more effective where she was, as the last defense against the chiefton of the In Vino Veritas mob. Of course, I also liked Donnie Darko and The City of Lost Children, so maybe I’m just weird.
I in no way denigrate the movie; I adore it. I’m just a nitpicky Doper who must point out illogical scenes. You have to like French/Jacques Tati-like humor, which I do, in order to fully appreciate it. You’re not weird, Stranger On A Train!
I love the maitre d’ in the restaurant and his brand of hand-waving toadying. I also love the little nose-wiggling mousy mechanic and his visit to the barber. I like how the bodyguards all desert their little French mob bosses en masse when faced with one of the triplet’s hand grenades. I think I love most of all the accordion player, “Roberte Rivette, la fee de l’accordion”, whose van gets stuck under the bridge in Marseille.
Every time I watch this film I see more that cracks me up.
:o 
:eek: