When Dilili in Paris starts, it seems like a harmless family cartoon. Written, directed and animated by Michel Ocelot, the first scene finds Dilili (dubbed for the English version by Angelina Carballo) performing in a re-enactment of her Kanak upbringing in a Parisian park near the Eiffel Tower. The scene is shocking, but with the light tone and Belle Époque setting, it’s easy to dismiss it as a product of the setting at worst and at best, a deliberate comment on France’s reexamination of relationship to both blackness and its colonial past. However, though Ocelot intends for the film to tackle both racism and sexism in a way that’s suitable for viewers of all ages, the way he handles those subjects is so disastrous that it’s hard to recommend the film to anybody at all.
Believe it or not, Dilili deliberately stowed away on a ship to France because she wanted to experience new people and things and she spends much of the movie being ferried through Paris by “tricycle” delivery boy, Orel (Jason Kesser), on a Forrest Gump-ian tour through the period’s most famous artists. Dilili meets painters like Picasso, Renoir and Monet —many of whom want to paint her. She meets Collette backstage after the writer’s controversial stage show. She watches the Moulin Rouge’s can can dancers with Toulouse-Lautrec. Actress Sarah Bernhardt and Ferdinand von Zeppelin figure prominently in the film’s climax, but most of the “cameos” feel like a little more than a namecheck meant to pique the interest of children who’ve never heard of these figures before. Still, while alerting young audiences to these famous names wouldn’t be inherently bad, where the film runs into problems is in trying to mesh those cameos with serious subject matter.
With its photorealistic settings, streamlined (perhaps even simplistic) character designs and, it must be said, stilted line delivery of too-literal dialogue, Dilili tries to keep things light throughout, so it’s jarring when things get dark. Take the scene when Orel is bitten by a rabid dog. The prospect of the infection is horrifying and while the characters briefly come to terms with the idea, the film quickly moves onto an action scene of Dilili biking Orel to Louis Pasteur’s office for treatment. The scene is meant to be funny, but it feels gauche in the moment. However, that tonal whiplash only gets worse as the film goes on.
It’s hard to talk about exactly what makes Dilili such a disaster without spoiling it, but it ties into the film’s A plot: the reason Dilili is on a tour of Paris’s most famous figures is because she’s trying to solve the mystery of the Male Masters, a mysterious group that has kidnapped scores of the city’s women, particularly children. Based on that description, you probably think you can guess the heinous plot Dilili and friends uncover, but the reality is much worse. And while there’s nothing wrong with digging into something as dark as institutionalized misogyny through a family cartoon, where Ocelot runs into problems is in trying to keep the film’s light, carefree tone while doing it. Watching the characters pause in the middle of the film’s save-the-children climax for a musical number is, without doubt, one of the worst scenes of the year.
Despite winning the César (France’s version of the Oscar) for Best Animated Film, Dilili in Paris is not just ill-suited to family viewing, but for just about any viewer. Ocelot’s intentions may be pure, but his handling of the serious social issues he tackles is so lacking in nuance that it borders on embarrassing. And if you look at it that way, the only justification for watching the film is that it has to be seen to be believed.
