Grand Illusions: The Best of Recent French Animation
February 23–March 5, 2006

The secret is out: France has produced some of the most imaginative animation of the past twenty-five years. Lacking the big budgets and vast technological resources of American and Japanese studios, French animation filmmakers have nonetheless confirmed a simple truth—that it all comes down to good stories and memorable characters. This primer on contemporary French animation has these in abundance: a Ruritanian romance (Paul Grimault’s marvelous The King and the Mockingbird), a swashbuckling adventure (Jean-François Laguionie’s Island of Black Mor), an ecological parable (Jacques-Rémy Girerd’s The Frog Prophecy), an African folktale (Michel Ocelot’s Kirikou and the Sorceress), a dark Russian fable (Francis Nielsen’s The Dog, the General, and the Birds), and a film that defies all pigeonholing (Sylvain Chomet’s The Triplets of Belleville). Two special features bookend the exhibition: the North American premiere of Kirikou and the Wild Beasts, introduced by writer-director Michel Ocelot on February 23; and La Table tournante, Jacques Demy’s rarely seen collaboration with the veteran animator Paul Grimault, a loving tribute from one fantasist to another. All films in French with English subtitles, except where noted.

Organized by Joshua Siegel, Assistant Curator, Department of Film and Media, The Museum of Modern Art, in collaboration with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Unifrance. Special thanks to Marie Bonnel and Janine Deunf (French Ministry), Antoine Khalife (Unifrance), and, for the loan of prints, Celluloid Dreams (Pascale Ramonda), Les Armateurs (Mireille Roullet), ArtMattan (Diarah N’Daw-Spech), and Sony Pictures Classics (Tom Prassis, Michael Piaker).

Kirikou et les bêtes sauvages (Kirikou and the Wild Beasts). 2005. France. Directed by Michel Ocelot and Bénédicte Galup. Screenplay by Ocelot. Tiny but indomitable Kirikou brings badly needed water to his village. As vegetables grow in once-parched gardens and families prosper, a jealous sorceress casts an evil spell, and Kirikou must save his village from extinction. African textiles inspired the film’s palette of ambers, ochers, and brightly colored patterns, and the film’s lush soundtrack brings together acclaimed musicians Youssou N’Dour from Senegal, Rokia Traoré from Mali, and Manu Dibango from Cameroon. North American premiere. 72 min.
Thursday, February 23, 6:30 (introduced by Ocelot). T2; Saturday, February 25, 3:45. T1

Kirikou et la sorcière (Kirikou and the Sorceress). 1998. France. Written and directed by Michel Ocelot. Music by Youssou N’Dour. Darkness befalls an African village when a sorceress’s curse dries up the land and the male inhabitants mysteriously disappear. Little Kirikou, who has willed himself from his mother’s womb, embarks on a perilous journey to the Forbidden Mountain to divine the source of the sorceress’s wickedness. Drawing upon West African folktales, Ocelot has fashioned a richly textured story for the ages. English version. 74 min.
Thursday, February 23, 8:15 (introduced by Ocelot). T2; Saturday, February 25, 2:00. T1

La Prophétie des grenouilles (The Frog Prophecy). 2003. France. Directed by Jacques-Rémy Girerd. Screenplay by Girerd, Antoine Lanclaux, Iouri Tcherenkov. With the voices of Michel Piccoli, Anouk Grinberg, Annie Girardot. To stave off ecological disaster—a flood of Biblical proportions—an army of frogs sound the alarm to bring complacent humans to their senses. Girerd imagines a harmonious détente between herbivores and carnivores in this wise and witty allegorical fable. New 35mm print. 90 min.
Friday, February 24, 6:30; Monday, February 27, 8:30. T1

Les Triplettes de Belleville (The Triplets of Belleville). 2003. France/Belgium/Canada/Great Britain. Written and directed by Sylvain Chomet. A beguiling and masterful mélange of the sweetly nostalgic and the grotesquely perverse, Triplets is Gallic to the core: pleasurable to all, yet steeped in knowing affection for the entire history of animation. It would be foolhardy to abridge the film’s breathless plot, except to salute its central players: intrepid old Madame Souza and her mopey dog Bruno; her grandson Champion, the monomaniacal Tour de France aspirant; and that inimitable Greek chorus of vaudevillian triplets, still swinging after all these years. 80 min.
Friday, February 24, 8:15; Thursday, March 2, 8:15. T1

La Table tournante. 1988. France. Directed by Jacques Demy and Paul Grimault. With the voices of Grimault, Anouk Aimée, Mathieu Demy. Inspired by the success of his 1980 feature The King and the Mockingbird, veteran animator Grimault reedited some of his short films from the 1930s to the 1970s into this feature. Jacques Demy, the director of wonderfully fanciful live-action films like Donkey Skin and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, portrays a true poet at work: Grimault at his editing table, magically transforming paper and ink into flora and fauna. 78 min.
Saturday, February 25, 5:45. T1; Saturday, March 4, 4:00. T2

Le Roi et l’oiseau (The King and the Mockingbird). 1979. France. Directed by Paul Grimault. Screenplay by Jacques Prévert, Grimault. Grimault was a major influence on Hayao Miyazaki and other contemporary Japanese animators, and his masterpiece is this adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s short story “The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep.” With dialogue by the celebrated poet Jacques Prévert, the film is a true marvel with all the requisite fairy tale tropes: a despotic king, a taunting bird, a beautiful shepherdess and a lowly chimney sweep, paintings come to life, and a retro-futurist underworld of sparkling caverns, Venetian canals, and roving bat-police. New 35mm print. 85 min.
Saturday, February 25, 7:30. T1; Saturday, March 4, 2:00. T2

L’Ile de Black Mor (The Island of Black Mor). 2004. France. Directed by Jean-François Laguionie. Screenplay by Laguionie, Anik Le Ray. In Cornwall, 1803, an orphan escapes his cruel fate by setting off in pursuit of treasure buried by the infamous pirate Black Mor. With his motley seafaring crew-a one-legged bandit, a former Ethiopian slave, and a baboon-the teenaged “Kid” commandeers a purloined Coast Guard cutter and tries to make a name for himself. New 35mm print. 80 min.
Sunday, February 26, 5:30; Monday, February 27, 6:00. T1

Le Chien, le general, et les oiseaux (The Dog, the General, and the Birds). 2003. France/Italy. Directed by Francis Nielsen. Screenplay by Tonino Guerra, based on his book. With the voice of Philippe Noiret. Legendary Italian screenwriter Guerra—the author of films by Federico Fellini, Theo Angelopoulos, Vittorio De Sica, and Michelangelo Antonioni—tells the fantastic and brooding story of a Russian general who tries to thwart the advance of the Napoleonic forces on Moscow by using flocks of inflamed birds. As he lives out his last years in St. Petersburg, he is haunted by the memory of his barbarism toward the birds; aided by his faithful dog Napoleon, he tries to make peace with their brethren. 75 min.

Wednesday, March 1, 6:00; Sunday, March 5, 1:00. T1

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