Aaltra

Overall this movie is so much better and funny then any comedy I have seen for the last few years. Jokes are cynical and sarcastic sometimes, black humour style often, however they are super original !

Maybe the plot/scenario, especially the end, is not the strongest part of the movie, but over 30 superb scenes make well up for this and make it overall a great movie in its genre.

It also intends to make you reflect on your position towards handicap persons and the way they are generally treated in our society. Whereas they are in most cases reflected as the person in need for help, the current directors/actors (same) simply exploit this situation. They were right to do so :).

Aaltra is definitely worth a try. The photography (grainy black-and-white) is very well composed, and the pictures are often beautiful, or at least kind of puzzling --even though they are merely showing a train, a field, or a tractor....The film is clearly pretty odd, and reminded me of the absurd atmosphere present in Kaurismakis' movie. Better, the film has a refreshing cynical black humor and has the courage of treating wheel-chair people without being patronizing at all (i.e., without any more respect than everybody else)... The humour reminded me a little bit of Man Bites Dog (C'est arrive pres de chez vous), although in a much milder tone which should be more acceptable for the mainstream.

Despite these qualities, it seems that a clear narrative (as well as geographical) direction what was lacking. I did not really have strong feelings for the story or its characters, which left me definitely seduced, but not enthralled.

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.

Delépine and de Kervern are Belgian comedians who conceived, wrote, directed and starred in this deliciously dark comedy about two rural neighbors (one is a farm hand, the other a business man who commutes to the city), men who hate each other and, in one horrid fight, accidentally inflict wounds that result in each becoming paraplegic. Now wheelchair bound, they find themselves thrown together, hitchhiking on a long road journey to Finland, to the Aaltra plant, where a piece of farm machinery was made, equipment that figured in their injuries, to seek compensation. Along the way, naturally, their mutual antipathy gives way, first to interdependence, and from there to a crude sort of friendship.

The early scenes seem deliberately, almost diabolically discontinuous and thus the unfolding of the story is puzzling for a while. Shot in grainy black & white, the movie seems like verité; at first one even wonders whether this is possibly a documentary. The Finnish biker Karaoke scene is by itself almost worth the price of admission. Dripping with drollery (sorry folks, I just can't seem to shake my obsession with alliterative riffs on the letter "d" today), this film recalls the comedies of the Finnish director, Aki Kaurismäki, who, in fact, has a cameo role at the end of this movie, as the Aaltra plant owner. My grade: B 7/10

To me this film epitomises the surreal underbelly of everyday life. I don't think it constitutes a "spoiler" to say that the film portrays in a strangely endearing way the boyish pigheadedness of grown men and the strength this and their devotion to their obsessions can give them. It also portrays the bleak loneliness of the island each man can become if he's not very lucky and the unlikely ways in which this loneliness can be alleviated.

Visually, I enjoyed the painterly quality of the over lighting of many scenes, which allows moments of reflection and, in the tradition of true art, encourages the viewer to see everyday objects or scenes in a new light. Again, I don't think it spoils anything as it's merely a brief passing scene, to suggest you look out for example for the tall thin man in the wheelchair at the railway station, disappearing into the light after passing one of the main protagonists in a doorway - it reminded me of the paintings of Francis Bacon among others. Even grim events can have a visual beauty, or at the least an arresting quality about them, and this is a film that has the courage to flaunt the fact and doesn't shy away from what is at first sight mundane or ugly. And as it highlights the hidden beauty of many ugly things so it also highlights the humour that can accompany the most unfortunate events. Even dreadful people have stories worth telling.

As regards the humour, it is indeed black and cynical but at the same time, and as is reinforced by the ending, it actually leaves the viewer (or this one at any rate) with a warm feeling and a sense almost of admiration for the sheer dogged tenacity and survival instinct of the two main protagonists. Moreover, the humour marinated in my mind so that next day, when trying to recount some of the scenes to friends, I found myself crying with laughter so that I was barely coherent, and seeing even more humour than I had noticed at the time.

This is not an unpolished piece of work; it is in fact skillful and deceptively subtle. A more obviously polished style would have sat uncomfortably with the spirit of the piece. It works on more than one level, rewarding anyone who can view it completely clear of any assumptions, prejudices or unnecessarily prudish criteria. It doesn't waste time being polite, it just tells it like it is. Remember you're just watching it. It's only fiction and art and you don't need to approve or disapprove. Just experience and hopefully enjoy.

I can't wait for it to be available on DVD so I can share it with my friends.