I saw The Triplets of Belleville last night, and it seems to have embedded itself in my subconscious like the dream that it so clearly is. And aside from a dream, with its stream of images whose juxtapositions are governed by some ruthless but inexplicable logic and which are accompanied by sounds that don't quite achieve coherence, I can't say what else it's like. It's certainly nothing like its trailer.

It has the subversive cleverness of The Simpsons, but the pace is leisurely and there are no more than a half dozen lines of dialogue (aside from background conversations, speakers on television, and the like). It has the breathtaking, meditative beauty of The Snowman, but would likely be deeply upsetting to children (a way in which it also reminds me of Fantasia, which I saw before I was five and not again until I was in my twenties, when I recognized it as the source of most of my nightmares in the intervening fifteen or more years). It has the primal dread of Maurice Sendak's best work, but it's ultimately funny and just a little poignant. And it has that damnably catchy Tom Waits meets French music hall theme song.

Just see it, because I'm never going to do it justice.