One of many many enduring pleasures of “Ernest & Celestine,” the 2014 French movie in regards to the unlikely bond between a bear and a mouse, is its rhapsodic bridging of music and imagery. The story (primarily based on books by Gabrielle Vincent) is rendered with gossamer line drawings so wedded to their accompanying rating that the pictures generally ripple, swell and curl in tandem with the musical notes.
“Ernest & Celestine: A Journey to Gibberitia” is the gem of a sequel to that Oscar-nominated movie, centering the story this time round on music because the sine qua non of neighborhood. The plucky, petite mouse Celestine (voiced by Pauline Brunner) and the surly troubadour Ernest (Lambert Wilson) trek to Ernest’s hometown, Gibberitia, an impressive however autocratic metropolis within the mountains the place music is not authorized. Not even birds are exempt; tuneful warblers are shooed and hosed down by the police.
Whereas the sooner movie tilted towards Celestine, “A Journey to Gibberitia,” directed by Julien Chheng and Jean-Christophe Roger, hangs on Ernest, a prodigal cub who quickly learns that his father, a state choose, instated the ban out of spite.
The brisk, energetic plot has shades of a French Revolutionary spirit — a band of rebel musicians name their underground motion “the resistance” — however the movie’s actual magic lies within the illustrations. Backdrops brim with painterly element, and tiny adjustments in characters’ faces convey worlds of feeling. In a movie whose ethical emphasizes the need of creative freedom, there’s a misleading simplicity to this aesthetic fashion that makes it all of the extra particular.
Ernest and Celestine: A Journey to GibberitiaNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Working time: 1 hour 20 minutes. In theaters.
