La vieille dame et les pigeons (1998)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Sylvain Chomet

Writers:

Sylvain Chomet (writer)
David Freedman (dialogue)
(more)

Release Date:

27 May 1998 (France)

Genre:

Animation | Comedy | Short

Plot:

A starving gendarme, wasting away from hunger, is reduced to grabbing castoff snacks from fat American tourists...

Plot Keywords:

Insanity | Surrealism | Black Comedy

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 7 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Jim Pidgeon	...	(voice)
Michoue Sylvain	...	(voice)
Andrea Usher-Jones	...	(voice)

Directed by
Sylvain Chomet

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Sylvain Chomet		writer
David Freedman		dialogue
Alan Gilbey		dialogue

Produced by
Pascal Blais	....	producer
Didier Brunner	....	producer
Bernard Lajoie	....	executive producer
Colin Rose	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Jean Corti

Film Editing by
Chantal Colibert
Hélène Girard

Art Direction by
Nicolas de Crécy

Art Department
Evgeni Tomov	....	assistant art director

Sound Department
Michel B. Bordeleau	....	supervising sound editor
Gavin Fernandes	....	sound re-recording mixer
Sid Lieberman	....	foley artist
Sylvie Masse	....	sound editor
Sylvain Richard	....	assistant sound editor

Visual Effects by
Eric Bolté	....	visual effects coordinator
Denis Roy	....	visual effects supervisor

Animation Department
Michel Carbonneau	....	animator (as Carbo)
Mario Carmel	....	assistant animator
Sylvain Chomet	....	animation director
Sylvain Chomet	....	animator
Serge Cicerone	....	animator
Christian Dion	....	inbetween artist
Alain Dumais	....	computer animator
Simon Dupuis	....	assistant animator
Marisol Gagnon	....	inbetween artist
Gérard T. Goulet	....	animator
Jens Hahn	....	animator
Daniel LaCroix	....	assistant animator (as Daniel J. LaCroix)
Yat Chi Lau	....	inbetween artist (as Yatchi Lau)
Félix Lavallée	....	inbetween artist
Pénélope Paicheler	....	assistant animator
Jim Pidgeon	....	inbetween artist
Kirk S. Sandiford	....	inbetween artist
Marc Simard	....	inbetween artist
Somboun Souannhaphanh	....	animator
Michel Therrien	....	inbetween artist

Production Companies

• British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) (BBC Bristol)
• Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC)
• Club d'Investissement Média
• Les Armateurs
• Odec Kid Cartoons
• Productions Django
• Productions Pascal Blais, Les
• Société de Développement des Entreprises Culturelles (SODEC)
• Trans Europe Film
• Téléfilm Canada

Distributors

• Les Grands Films Classiques (GFC) (France)

Special Effects

• Luminefix Inc.

Also Known As:

The Old Lady and the Pigeons

Runtime:

France:25 min | UK:21 min

Country:

France | UK | Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

France:U | UK:PG

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Mystery Science Theater 3000: Academy of Robots' Choice Awards Special (1998) (TV)

delightfully grotesque

This wonderfully dotty short film from the creator of Belleville Rendez-vous, Sylvain Chomet, really is fantastic. It has an original storyline - a starving gendarme, some greedy fat pigeons, a pigeon-obsessed lady, and some wild dancing.

The animation puts its grotesque characters (which put me in mind of the drawings of Gerald Scarfe) into a world all of their own, where the gendarme fantasises about food, is irritated by pigeons, and eventually dresses up as one of the birds himself to continually visit the old lady for slap-up meals.

'The Old Lady and the Pigeons' is the epitome of bad taste cartoons, a darkly fun half-hour in the company of skewed figures and warped minds.