Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

accounts-901-234390 Words cannot express how beautiful this film is, both in visuals and in content.I watched it, stupidly expecting a live action film, but what I got... Well, it's difficult to describe.The animation is the best I've ever seen, I have no idea how they did it, but so often you have to remind yourself that it's not real despite the fact that the art work is stylised.Each shot contains details that only add to the story, and each shot is like a work of art.This is a beautiful film, watch it as soon as you possibly can.

Johan Forslund Just like everyone else, I consider the animation to be absolutely perfect. The film is so wonderfully French, while the colors and environments makes me think of environments in Pelle Svanslös (a Swedish film which is much better than you might think).The film is also beautiful in the way that it is not aware that it is a movie - the actions takes place and you just happen to look at it. They are not trying to entertain you, they simply live their lives.What prevents the film from perfection is that the lack of speech feels forced (to some extent). It's really wonderful that they speak so little, but in some cases it feels unnatural and strange that no one utters any words. It's like the movie gave itself a rule not to speak, a rule that should rather have been a guideline.

Robert Reynolds This film was nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Feature, losing to Toy Story 3. There will be spoilers ahead:This film uses a script written by Jacques Tati and adapted by Sylvain Chomet. The film displays the strengths/weaknesses of Chomet's other works (Exactly what constitutes a strength or a weakness is variable, depending on the eye of the beholder). The plot is minimal, with just the barest sketch of a story. A stage magician, practicing a craft which is dying out in the late 1950s, finds himself reduced to playing backwater towns and smaller venues, meeting a very naive young girl named Alice in one inn in Scotland. When he leaves, she follows him without his knowledge, popping up on a train, where the magician decides on the spur of the moment to take the girl under his wing.They take a room at a rundown boarding house for lower rung stage acts. The magician sees his opportunities to be a stage act dry up and takes other, less appealing and more degrading work to support them until the girl meets a young man and the two part company and begin separate chapters in their life story. That's the story.Doesn't sound like much, does it? Except that Chomet makes up for the sketchy plot here by his attention to detail in the visual look of the film and the magnificent characterizations of even the most minor characters. The magician's rabbit is enormous and rather ill-tempered, the magician himself (modeled after Tati) is stiff and formal, charming and distant. The girl is industrious and calculating, full of dreams and desires and at the start of her life, filled with hope.Various characters pop up and drop out of the film. The drunken host in a kilt shows up a few times, a popular, noisy and rather silly rock band crosses paths with the magician a couple of times in the film and the down and out stage acts, particularly a trio of acrobats constantly in motion, provide some humor and pathos here and there.The film is visually gorgeous and shows a lot of attention to detail. A train crosses a river on a bridge and you see it's reflection in the water as a waterfowl takes flight. Lights shining through windows cast light and shadow on the interior of rooms and characters. The colors are striking and lush when they should be or dingy and washed out when it's appropriate. It's an animator's film in some ways. It's beautifully executed. The character designs are the type Chomet characteristically uses. Watch through the end of the credits, as there's a nice little scene at the end.This film is available on DVD and Blu Ray and both look very good, with Blu Ray getting a slight edge. This film is most definitely worth seeing. Most Recommended.

pmoonoak I must admit my cinematic prejudice up front: I prefer the faster pace of most American films. Having seen 'Belleville,' I was prepared for a) a visual masterpiece of hand-made animation, and b) the glacial tempo and somber mood of 'The Illutionist.' The characters mumble their way through a plot stretched so thin it becomes tedious. The minute details of travel, hotel rooms, and the streets of Scotland's capital are rendered so beautifully it almost makes up for the melancholy and ultimately deflating story. And I have to add, in all honesty, that many French films I've seen do not seem to know how to complete themselves, with awkward and abrupt endings that leave me dissatisfied. So it is with this film: lovely to look at, but little happens to engage my yearning for robust storytelling.