Aaltra

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

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.

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.

'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.

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.