The Old Lady and the Pigeons (1996) User Reviews

delightfully grotesque

[didi-5 · 7/10 · 20 December 2004]

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.

A short trip before the Triplets

[FilmFlaneur · 9/10 · 15 October 2006]

If you have ever wondered what Sylvain Chomet, the creator of Les Triplettes de Belleville did before that, then I can tell you: it's this, an entirely characteristic, shorter and considerably darker tale of pigeons and policemen, allied to a cruel dig at American tourists in Paris. The animator's Searle-like style is already fully formed and one or two of the beloved character types from Belleville (the dog, the diminutive mother) appear here too. Vieille Dame is not however merely a dry run for the fully fledged feature, more an extended taster of a unique talent. At only 20 mins it is still worth seeking out and is coupled on disc with three other animations laced with dark humour, although sadly not by Chomet. Only available from Amazon.fr apparently as part of a 50 minute DVD, and without English subtitles - although as only one of the four animation uses language to any extent, and the lesser of these too, this is not a real problem. Recommended.

Pigeon Man

[Rectangular_businessman · 8/10 · 7 June 2023]

The Triplets of Belleville is one of my favorite films from all time, both for its pretty unique aesthetics and its unusual narrative: Chomet takes full advantage of the animated medium for his bizarre stories, and this early short isn't the exception: Plenty of elements from his first feature are already present here, most notoriously the almost grotesque way in which he tends to depict most characters, often in a way other animators and viewers would merely dismiss as something "ugly", yet personally always found it oddly charming due how expressive and meticulous is: The lack of dialogue in his work often serves as a way to pay attention to the non-verbal language of the characters, giving a lot of detail to their personal mannerism in a way which benefits the plot much better than any kind of flowery dialogue.

I honestly cannot imagine any of his works looking in any other way: Animation, plot and gags are interconnected with perfect synergy, adding a certain surreal , and even macabre touch to the cartoonish shenanigans.

While I did not enjoy this as much as the Triplets of Belleville or The Illusionist, this was a pretty interesting watching experience anyway; being a pretty solid beginning for the career of Chomet, already showing his great potential as filmmaker.

Hope to see more stuff from him in a near future.

"They eat weird stuff, like horse. And donkey. And goat's cheese!"

[Monkey Bastard · 30 December 1999]

An absolutely splendid French short about a (to say the least) starving gendarme who discovers a lady feeding pigeons in the park and dresses up like a pigeon in a desperate attempt to get food. Strange indeed. Very nicely done, it really captures the atmosphere of Paris. Great animation, odd story, and the fat American tourists are just too damn funny.

While possibly anti-American, this is a great animated short

[planktonrules · 10/10 · 12 February 2008]

THE OLD LADY AND THE PIGEONS was nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 1998 and wow was that a tough year to choose! In one of the best lineup of films I can remember, the Pixar short GERI'S GAME beat out such terrific films as Petrov's MERMAID and this film. As for the other two films, FAMOUS FRED and REDUX RIDING HOOD, I saw FRED and wasn't very impressed and I can't find a copy of REDUX. However, as a "three horse race", it was very, very tight because all three were terrific films.

Oddly, the winner of the award was my least favorite of the three--as I think there are quite a few better Pixar shorts. MERMAID was by far the most beautiful and artistic and PIGEONS was by far the funniest and strangest of the films. As to whether I prefer the Russian or French film, I am not sure--I loved them both.

The film begins and ends with some very stereotypical American tourists. This was a two-edged sword. While they were very funny (especially in the final sequence), I also worry that this is just encouraging French hatred of Americans. Both countries need to relax a bit in the stereotypes and this film is like gasoline in the fire--albeit, very, very funny "gasoline".

Then, after this odd introduction, the film begins in earnest. There is a policeman who is very, very hungry and doesn't seem to have any money for food. And while walking his beat, he notices that an old lady is feeding the pigeons like they are kings and he's jealous. So in a very weird twist, he starts grabbing pigeons off the sidewalks, stripping them of their feathers and making himself a false pigeon head from them!! He looks ridiculous but the old lady is apparently either blind or senile or both because she invites him into her home and feeds him as well. You'd think she would give him and the real pigeons bread or seeds, but feeds them wine, pastry and meat!! Where it all goes from here, you'll have to see for yourself. The film is very funny, twisted and occasionally dark. But because it is so unique and so wonderful, I really wish this and MERMAIDS could have shared the Oscar--they were both that good.

Miracle of a movie!

[ggk-34-546807 · 10/10 · 6 August 2011]

After "Tripplets of Bellvile" (which is my favorite animated movie of all time) I was hungry for more of Sylvian Chomet unique world...

Thankfully I've soon found "The Old lady and the pigeons"! A movie set in the same universe and with the same charm and grotesque of the "Tripplets". Its short but but it will make you want watch it over and over again (over and over) Its very hard to describe this story without ruining for you as all of movie elements connect together in a wonderful way and story is building in a very oryginal way you never seen beafore. In fact this movie has "oryginal" written all over. Just trust me when I say - if you enjoy Tripplets or have a dark sense of humor you will enjoy this one very much!

WHY THEY Don't MAKE MORE MOVIES LIKE THIS is a riddle to me...

Excellent short done by Sylvain Chomet but not to all tastes

[llltdesq · 10/10 · 31 March 2014]

This short was nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Short. There will be mild spoilers ahead:

This short was done prior to The Triplets of Bellville, which is a masterpiece. The animation, character designs and backgrounds are the same style as Bellville. This short is even odder than Bellville.

The short centers around a gendarme who is starving (I guess the job must pay horribly or something, because with one exception, every other character in the short is overweight or grossly obese, particularly the American tourists). He discovers a large gathering of seriously overweight pigeons to find that an old lady is feeding them.

Instead of doing something sensible, like strangling a pigeon or two and eating them, he actually takes one home and uses it as a model to construct a large pigeon head (there's a particularly disturbing shot of said pigeon later in the short). The Gendarme then goes to the old lady's apartment and insists on being fed, which she does pretty much daily.

Ultimately, the gendarme grows grotesquely obese. One Christmas Eve, he discovers the intentions of the old lady aren't to his long term benefit and departs the apartment in a hasty manner.

The close of the short is funny and the gendarme gets what he deserves. I should very much like a DVD or Blu-Ray release of this in the US, but doubt it will happen. It's well wort tracking down. Most highly recommended.

Something in a league of it's own

[y_m-00834 · 10/10 · 30 November 2017]

I'm not sure why, but this short piece was powerful enough to resonate with me on so many levels. It must have been the hungry gendarme, who so desperately was in need to get feed. The story line is something more or less grotesque in nature but what touched me the most in this "weirdly appealing" film was the character development. From the first moment the gendarme appears on the tourists' camera shots, you know you want to get to know this strange guy more and more. Well, of course it demands a terrible amount of talent and skill to be able to animate a cartoon character so human-like and impressive but this film seems to be backed up by a group of genius creators. Some scenes and sequences prove the animators have really let their imagination go wild and even though the film's run-time may exceed the normal amount expected from a short piece, you'll enjoy every single frame of it. Those familiar with Chomet and his distinguished style, know that it's really hit or miss with him and as long as you're not looking for vain sentiment in a film, then this piece is definitely for you.

Absurd, but entertaining

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 31 July 2015]

"The Old Lady and the Pigeons" is a 25-minute animated short film from almost 20 years ago. It was done by Sylvain Chomet at a young age and, even if this film "only" won the BAFTA and did not win the Oscar (lost to Pixar)and was "only" nominated, he managed to build a successful career on this short movie. He was certainly not the most prolific filmmaker, but when he made a new movie, it was quite successful. For example he managed to get several more Oscar nominations and that is really not a given as he is not an American filmmaker and his movies never reached great audience figures outside of France.

Now about his work here, I would say it is a good movie and he deserved the nomination all in all and a win may have been a bit too much. Maybe this film should only have run for 15 minutes as the basic plot is not really that much for almost half an hour. Still I have to say, it never dragged. With the basic plot I mean a guy who is starving realizes that a pigeon-feeding lady at the park has terrible eyesight and starts eating with the other pigeons from that day on. The woman also takes him home and makes him special meals. Is she really that stupid and blind? This is a pretty good film on the art of make-believe. But who is the artist in the end? Watch for yourself.

An unusual and surprising yet amusing French animated short

[Stompgal_87 · 8/10 · 27 November 2013]

I first heard of this short when I saw that it was on the same DVD collection of short films as Andrea Arnold's gritty yet thought-provoking 'Wasp' and for a start I didn't know it was animated until I stumbled upon its IMDb profile, which made me want to see it more because I love animation. Upon watching it on YouTube, I found it bizarre yet amusing in parts.

The opening and closing scenes of some American tourists in Paris were colourful with accurately-drawn backgrounds but also one of the most unusual parts of the film because I was expecting French dialogue, which was present in 'Ernest and Celestine' but they were speaking English with French subtitles on the screen. The human characters are oddly designed as well but the animation is smooth for the most part. There is minimal dialogue outside the opening and closing scenes and the colours of the scenes of the old lady feeding the pigeons are not the brightest. Although she speaks gibberish, I found her a generous character. The principal male character is grumpy and greedy but I enjoyed watching his bizarre nightmare where some human/pigeon hybrids eat a pig the old lady leaves for them as well as his insides. Another odd part was the repetitive sequence of the man coming to the old lady's flat wearing a papier-mâché pigeon mask to be fed from mid- September until Christmas Eve and progressively becoming fatter. The incidental music is nearly as sparse as the dialogue but I like its authenticity.

Out of all four French animated independent films I've seen so far this year ('The Illusionist,' 'The Monk and the Fish,' 'Ernest and Celestine' and this one), this is the strangest one but all in all a pleasant surprise with its funny moments. 8/10.

birds of a feather make for a great satire

[lee_eisenberg · 10/10 · 17 December 2017]

"La vieille dame et les pigeons" ("The Old Lady and the Pigeons" in English) offers a comedic look at the lengths to which a person will go for self-preservation, as a malnourished policeman gets into the confidence of an old woman by dressing as a pigeon and getting her to feed him. But it turns out that he's not the only one who has plans in store.

An interesting trick that Sylvain Chomet's Academy Award-nominated short uses is the lack of dialogue except for the beginning and end. The only speech comes from stereotypical tourists from the US (those scenes actually have French subtitles). But the point is that this is a clever animated short. I think that these animated shorts are more interesting than the animated features whose sole selling point is star power. I recommend it.

lovely absurd

[Kirpianuscus · 7 July 2017]

but one who works in great manner. because it is an embroidery of stereotypes and clichés. because the poor gendarme represents more than the story of starvation but the social parable of success.and its price. and the old lady is adorable.short, one of films who preserves the flavor of Paris. with each its pieces/ingredients, from tourists to the...pigeons. and, sure, the music, humor and the dishes.