I would kind of like to see this movie, and I am usually accompanied by an 8-year-old. So, anybody who’s seen this, is this an appropriate introduction to French cinema for an 8-year-old who enjoys the Marx Bros., and why is it PG-13, and will a limited comprehension of French be a barrier or not matter at all?
(If there’s been some discussion a link would be good. I’ve never had any luck doing searches on here at all.)
The movie has almost no dialogue, so lack of French isn’t a problem. Then again, my girlfriend speaks the language so what dialogue there was, I had translated.
I think the only real problem with taking an 8-year-old is that he (she?) might be bored. It’s not a deep movie, but it’s very strange and the animation is probably unlike anything he’s seen before.
Yay, the SDMB community comes through again! 3 minutes! Thanks.
Here ya go:
http://www.screenit.com/movies/2003/the_triplets_of_belleville.html
Scroll down to “Our Word To Parents”.
No, it doesn’t. Although the MPAA rating system is often controversial, they’ve always rated on content, not boredom level. (Despite the original controversy over the “don’t give a damn” line, when Gone With The Wind was rereleased in the 60s or 70s, when the rating system began, it received a G. How many youngsters are gonna sit through that one?)
According to the Association themselves, The Triplets of Belleville recieved a PG-13 for “images involving sensuality, violence, and crude humor.”
Bare breasts (Josephine Baker’s) in the first scene.
I took my 13-year-old, but left the 8-year-old at home. He MIGHT have liked it. But he can wait for the video.
The person I saw it with – an adult – was very bothered by the treatment of animals in it:
specifically, what amounts to horrific torture of a bunch of frogs.
The film has little to no dialogue. It resembles the old cartoons that didn’t need dialogue, just music, like say Tom & Jerry or some Looney Tunes. If the kid likes the Marx Bros. I’d say they’re bound to enjoy it. (and I’d hardly say it’d be boring, I don’t know where that came from. There’s something entrancing going on in every single frame.)
I could have sworn I heard the French version of the F-word in one the songs. A line a translated something like this “If something something then fuck you too.”
Did I hear right?
There are several incidents of death and violence against people as well as frogs, including one in which a man is shot to death at close range – nothing graphic, but hopefully some 8-year-olds still find things like that disturbing.
Well, I was obviously making my own judgements on the movie and not going by what the MPAA thought.
Though I had forgotten about the brief nudity (color me desensitized). I wouldn’t want my 11-year-old sister seeing those scenes.
I felt worse for the poor dog then the frogs. Most of the frogs were probably killed instantly(except for the one that managed to make it to the overhead tracks). That poor dog was used as transportation.
Yeah, but …
The dog providing the last wheel is just hinted at, with him being revealed at the end of their trip – the frogs were trying to climb out of the pot they were being boiled in.
What about the people, ok mobsters, that get blown up?