Review: In the ‘Ernest & Celestine’ Sequel, a Prodigal Cub Returns

One of the various enduring pleasures of “Ernest & Celestine,” the 2014 French movie concerning the unlikely bond between a bear and a mouse, is its rhapsodic bridging of music and imagery. The story (based mostly on books by Gabrielle Vincent) is rendered with gossamer line drawings so wedded to their accompanying rating that the photographs generally ripple, swell and curl in tandem with the musical notes.

“Ernest & Celestine: A Trip 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 group. 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.

While the sooner movie tilted towards Celestine, “A Trip to Gibberitia,” directed by Julien Chheng and Jean-Christophe Roger, hangs on Ernest, a prodigal cub who quickly learns that his father, a state decide, 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 modifications in characters’ faces convey worlds of feeling. In a movie whose ethical emphasizes the need of inventive freedom, there’s a misleading simplicity to this aesthetic type that makes it all of the extra particular.

Ernest and Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia
Not rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes. In theaters.