Aaltra

Forget about Thelma and Louise (1991), The Sugarland Express (1974) and others: this is a road movie with a real difference – actually many differences.

First, it's shot in beautiful, stark black-and-white, always the best, in my opinion, for watching faces – the shadows bringing out the grimaces, smiles, sadness, despair etc, in a way that colour misses. Second, most of the players in this story are nameless. Third, there is virtually no musical sound track; but there is a hilarious scene at a biker gathering when le chanteur finlandais (Bouli Lanners) sings – in English – the well know blues song, 'Sonny'. And, finally, the story is told more or less visually, as good cinema should; while the sparse dialog fills in the narrative 'gaps' for the viewer.

It doesn't start as a road movie at all: two locals in a provincial town have an argument that results in both of them rendered paralyzed from the waist down. After a period of hospitalization, they both return to their homes in wheelchairs, realizing that their lives are ruined unless they try to get compensation from the company that produced the faulty equipment that caused their injuries. So, they decide to go to Finland together, to the headquarters of the company – Aaltra – and demand compensation. And so, they begin their journey…in wheelchairs! The rest of the story isn't really about Aaltra, at all. Instead, the directors – who also play the two paralyzed protagonists – use that scenario to explore and satirize how ordinary people treat the wheelchair bound and vice-versa, setting up some moments of side-splitting humour and irony as the two travel 3000 km to finally reach their objective. And, what an objective it is...which I'll leave you to discover.

For me, this movie is a treat, a feast about why people go out of their way to be helpful, kind, difficult, unpleasant, devious, obnoxious etc – and what can happen when they lose the capacity for trying to understand another's point of view. It's an object lesson for all, and a very funny one to boot.

Highly recommended for all lovers of good cinema and clever comedy.

Aaltra is a film like no other. It is not just dark humour it's a pitch black comedy. The only thing is that the comedy doesn't start at the beginning of the film and I was wondering if someone had got it wrong. When too feuding neighbours both get themselves in to a fight a subsequent accident with a tractor leaves them both paralysed from the waist down. Wheelchair bound and completely inept at being disabled the two then venture on a highly bizarre road trip to try and get compensation from the company who's tractor got them in the mess in the first place. Where are the laughs? I hear you cry, well about twenty minutes into the film I started to chuckle and by the end I was wiping the tears from my eyes. You see the genius of the humour is in the main characters, who continue to feud, but secretly get on and aid each other in their quest. Imagine grumpy old men on wheels. Getting mugged, mugging themselves, stealing, out staying there welcome as irritating house guests, getting drunk, lost and in allsorts of scrapes once it gets going there isn't a dull moment. They say the essence of comedy is timing and these two are the masters of the pregnant pause, this added to the fact that they just look funny makes this film so enjoyable to watch. I don't want to give too much away; I want you all to experience the film as I did. Know a little not a lot about it and enjoy it loads.

A commuter and a farmhand get in one another's way often, causing tensions and frustrations between them. When the farmhand causes the commuter to miss his train, lose his job and arrive home early to find his wife having an affair, the commuter and the farmhand get into a fight around the farm equipment and end up badly injured – both ending up paralysed from the waist down. Seemingly stuck with one another, they set out on a trip to Finland to seek out the manufacturer of the equipment that put them in this state.

This sat on my harddrive for several months before I got around to watching it and, if you read the plot summary and know that it is a black & white and in French, you will perhaps understand why. Unsure of what to expect I settled down to it – thinking it unfair that I neglect it in favour of "easier" American blockbusters etc. What I found was an unspectacular but clever look at how disabled people are treated and viewed. The road trip aspect is not much more than a frame to allow this to happen and indeed even the conclusion is making the point in an amusing way. In regards narrative then it doesn't really satisfy because of this being the weaker aspect but I found the look at disability to be enough to cover this.

The writer and director do well to avoid sentimentality or preaching and they are very even handed across the telling. We see people being overly kind, people ignoring them, people picking them and so on. Fairly we also seeing them taking advantage of goodwill and being just as big a pair of jerks as able-bodied people can be. It sounds simple to say it but the film does do a good job with this theme and, although not hilarious, it did produce some dark laughs along the way. Writer and director Delépine and de Kervern do a good job in the two lead roles and also work very well with a limited budget.

Overall then not a perfect film but a cleverer one that I initially gave it credit for. The narrative is not a lot more than a frame to allow the dark comic look at the treatment of the two characters but in this regard it works well enough while the examples of treatment are fair and well delivered.

'Aaltra', made on a budget of about ninepence (and showing every penny of it) is a harsh and unsentimental comedy about a couple of paraplegics who go on a road trip from Belgium to Finland by means of hitch-hiking in their wheelchairs. The fact that the two travelling companions are bitter enemies only adds to the bizarre hilarity.

Both travellers are intentionally depicted as unlikeable. The filmmakers rather daringly go against audience sentiment, deliberately undermining any sympathy that the physical handicap of the main characters would give them. One of the two handicapped men is shown asking passers-by to help him across the road ... and then he tries to snatch their wallets while they assist him! Elsewhere, there is a great deal of pratfall comedy at the expense of the two paraplegics.

The entire film is shot in stark, washed-out monochrome. I suspect that this was a necessity due to the very low production budget, but the filmmakers have cleverly turned this to the advantage of the narrative. The whole film looks like some stark minimalist seriocomedy by Samuel Beckett. Imagine Vladimir and Estragon in wheelchairs, on their way to see Godot. Or two Hamms without a Clov.

There are some bizarre continuity lapses: these seem to be down to the low budget. And there is also a very gratuitous insertion of a naked woman; I suspect that the distributor insisted upon this, in order for the film to get a larger audience. 'Aaltra' is not to all tastes, but I laughed heartily and the filmmakers show real ability. I'll rate this movie 7 out of 10.

Belgian film is having a great period and Aaltra is another proof of that. It's rather back to the basics. It's so basic that the actors for long periods don't speak. They even don't have any mimic during these periods. Still much is said all the time.

This is about the neighbors hating each other. Hate gets them into an accident and they both end up in wheel chairs. They begin to need each other and the silent and in many ways literally unmoving friendship starts.

This is a black comedy where you after a while start to laugh, not at the two friends but at the circumstances around them. That's probably also the message.