Aloys

This movie is not only visually stunning, greatly directed and performed, but is also extremely clever and interesting. I get it, it's a slow movie! But it's also how the story is told, slow paced and detailed, that makes you feel immersed in to the characters lives and fears and frustrations. It's about the human condition and how we cope with small things in life. People who dislike this are probably Nolan fans who cant understand an extremely over-explained blockbuster movie. Worth the watch over all these brainless new titles flooding streaming services every day. 10/10

Seen at the IMAGINE film festival 2017 in Amsterdam. Despite technically nothing wrong with this movie, I fail to find anything remarkable in it, no logical dramatic development, and no plot whatsoever. I assume that the film makers were so obsessed with the basic concept of mixing fantasy and reality, that they forgot to add a comprehensible and edible story. The "help" given to Aloys for breaking out of his loneliness, went past me and I cannot imagine it offering any escape nor a solid path to achieve that goal.

All in all a pity, as the first half hour is mysteriously promising. After that, the jumps between reality, fantasy and the mix between what could be true and what seems fantasy, make you soon lose interest, particularly as it has no clear effect on the psychology of main characters and their future life. I don't think Aloys will improve his quality of living, and the life and motivation of the woman is unclear to such a degree that I cannot tell what her future looks like either.

Aloys Aldon is a lonely man, he works as a Private Detective in Switzerland. He was under the thrall of his father who has just died and now he is alone with a cat who seems estranged and has a magnesium deficiency. He has spent his life viewing the World through the view finder of his cam corder

Then something happens that makes him realise just how bland his existence is and that he has all the charm of a disused latrine – but strangely it awakens in him a part of his being that he had felt erstwhile lost. Now this is a strange film and it is meant to be. It co-mingles reality with fantasy in a way that is completely believable.

The music is often portentous or hinting at a dripping emotion like a dam about to burst. The shots are all beautifully framed and the tension creeps up on you without you realising it – only to be broken by moments of release. In short a film that a lot of thought and soul has gone into. It is a slow starter though a very slow start but it is so worth staying with – this is one for those who appreciate what cinema can do and not expect it to be as they have always known.

From a strange, eerie opening, featuring a continuous string of stylish visuals and ethereal music the audience is led into a semi-surreal fantasy. At first, the mysterious situations that make up the life of small time private eye, Aloys, promises to take us into some interesting psychological territory but, as the story ambles into unfathomable character involvements - the initial element of mystery simply becomes tiresome. The real becomes fused with the unreal - till it all falls over itself. That's when most viewers are likely to become restless and begin to want it all to move toward some sort of closure. Slick images and a mysterious first 25mins is simply not strong enough to hang a limp study of loneliness (or is it madness?) & then expect it to carry the weight of 90mins. As a short experimental movie it could have worked - there's simply not the legs to carry a feature. As to be expected, this overstretched work won praise from festivals but defiantly won't win many patrons. It certainly would be a hard watch to ever re-visit. Photography, mystical score, and the main performance, carry it to a degree but lack of coherence brings it down to little more than an interesting failure.

A lonely private investigator (Georg Friedrich) is contacted by a mysterious woman (Tilde von Overbeck) who pulls him into a mind game known as 'telephone walking'. Fascinated by her voice, Aloys discovers an imaginary universe that allows him to break out of his isolation.

Although Aloys is a private investigator and is expected to be listening and watching at all times, we know something is off from the very first scene: he is intently watching (and filming) his own deceased father. But then again, everyone grieves in their own special way.

This is writer-director Tobias Nölle's first feature, following his segment in the anthology film "Wonderland", and he has really created his own little universe with this one. The set design is appropriately gloomy to reflect Aloys' sullen emotions, with the only bright colors (ironically) being in the crematorium, where we watch his father's casket get unceremoniously dumped into the flames.

We are introduced to the concept of "telephone walking", an idea that was allegedly developed in Japan around 1984 by an unnamed neurologist. Is this concept real? For the sake of the film, that doesn't matter. The methods involved allow lonely folks such as Aloys to envision a passing train, or a wildly flamboyant electric organ disco party. (Yes, the latter happens, and it's the highlight of the otherwise depressing film.)

More interesting than the "telephone walking", perhaps, is how quickly Aloys and his mysterious caller find themselves in a game of cat and mouse, and she clearly has the upper hand. Writer-director Nölle has said, "We live in times where everybody wants to be seen, everybody takes pictures of themselves, everybody creates a second, more brilliant self on the web. I was interested in a man who is invisible, a private eye, who sees everything through his camera, but nobody sees him. Until the day a stranger turns the camera on him."

How life is in Switzerland, I have no idea. But the theme of surveillance is very topical in the United States, where recent headlines about NSA snooping are still fresh concerns in the minds of many. Aloys is interesting in that he represents the hidden surveillance being unmasked. But his work raises another question: what has become of the private eye in a world where everybody is surveilling themselves? If he (or the NSA) wants to know someone's innermost thoughts, they only have to log onto Facebook and scroll through hundreds or thousands of photos uploaded daily.

People like to ask before going in to the theater, "What is the movie like?" This film does not compare easily to anything else, which is high praise for the script. Critic Boyd van Hoeij notes, "Aloys, with his old-fashioned equipment, loner attitude and obsessive edges, recalls Gene Hackman's surveillance expert in Coppola's masterpiece, 'The Conversation'." That's a fair touchpoint, especially considering how often Aloys rewinds and replays his tapes. But the similarities are only superficial. There really is nothing else out there quite like "Aloys".

One fumbles to even describe the picture. It is simultaneously beautiful and depressing, uplifting and lonely, hopeful and barren. Aloys lives in a world that few would want to be in; even he would rather be somewhere else. But at least everything looks good while being swallowed into the void. Even a brief shot of an ambulance seen through a window is gloriously perfect.

"Aloys" premieres July 21, 2016 at the Fantasia Film Festival. While certainly not the fell-good movie of the year, it is definitely one of the best-looking, and may find its way on to a few Top Ten lists.