ROBIN AND SON

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MR. ROBIN AND SON IS ANIMATION MOVIES maginative flights of fantasy – all showing that animation can be far more than just cartoons for kids (though we do, of course, love those deeply too). There are at least cinquante reasons to see The Triplets Of Belleville, French animator Sylvain Chomet's astonishing debut. For starters there's the practically dialogue-free plot (a club-footed grandmother mounts a rescue mission to save her grandson from the Mafia during the Tour de France), the set-pieces (the opening musical number, a pedalo chase, a last reel getaway), a great supporting cast (sad-faced cyclists, larger-than-life mobsters) and the titular ageing music hall stars who steal the show. It spices up a silent movie look with surrealism but thrives on daring to go to a place most animation doesn't dare: it flits between sadness and satire (Belleville is a thinly-veiled America) and nostalgia to become a paean to times gone by. Somehow it also manages to be funny as hell.