A brief analysis with spoilers of The Triplets of Belleville, the greatest satirical movie that I have seen. I wrote this for people who have already seen the film, and it may not make sense if you haven't. I was surprised that I couldn't find a review which points out the underlying meaning that I see.
The movie is an allegory about the commercialization and professionalization of the entertainment industry. It can also be read more broadly as a warning of what we lose in the drive for profit.
The film's opening is a tribute to early animation, with a loving imitation of the fluid style and creative visual humor of the time. The climax is a parody of a Hollywood chase scene, though Hollywood chase scenes are so over-the-top that it's hard to exaggerate them any further. The end is "yes, it's over" (one of the few bits that depends on language and, I suppose, had to be translated for the North American release): The old heartfelt cartoons are gone, and money is in charge now. Every event in between lights the path we have taken from there to here.
The triplets stand for the quirky ways of art driven by the individual artist, rich in texture and poor in budget. The mafia stands for corporations, with boxy identical thugs who merge together (even the seemingly-cutesy character designs turn out to be detailed symbols). The Tour de France is depicted as an event started by bicycle lovers but now pushed so far by competition that the racers are overspecialized freaks who walk awkwardly. The kidnapping is corporate takeover, draining the last dregs of meaning from the event by replacing the travel with machinery.
I could go on and on about trains, the dog's dreams, food, Europe vs. North America.... Every touch is meaningful.
Many early animated cartoons are in the public domain now. Explore archive.org, and you can see for yourself the deterioration as the wonderfully original early cartoons, made for love of a new medium, morph into baby food through the 30's and 40's. The Triplets of Belleville is an attempt to turn back the clock, and it's telling that it was not popular in the U.S.
The original version of this essay was written in February 2008.
Updated and added here July 2008.