Aloys

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 Swiss psychological drama; A story about a loner and private investigator whose surveillance equipment is stolen by someone who offers him the chance to break out from his self-isolation. This melancholic film is inventive, eerie, peculiar, captivating magic realism. It works a theme about escape from grief and loneliness, and addresses issues about digital surveillance and privacy. The film starts promisingly, but sags with the introduction of a weirdo-boy-meets-pretty-girl narrative and their madcap twists whereupon it focuses too much on clever technique than story spine. Nevertheless, intrigue is held across the strange characterisations and imaginative touches.

Honestly, I don't know how I stumbled across this film. I was just minding my own business, looking for a movie to watch and so I checked my 2016 watchlist. When I checked it a film called 'Aloys' was starring back at me. So I told myself that if I could find it, I would watch this little film. A little film that I couldn't even remember wanting to see. But find it, I did. The best way to really describe this film is that it's a hybrid between 'Her' and something like 'Synecdoche New York'. Simply put, this is a romance of sorts that has a lot of visual metaphors. It's a kind of bizarro little film that feels like a bunch of friends put together just because they could.

Mainly the film is about a private investigator who recently lost the one person he was close to, his father. The film picks up shortly after the funeral for his dad. As the films goes along we see that this man is stuck in a deep rut. He's completely isolated from the world and does nothing but secretly tape people and then re-watch it over and over. That is, until he gets his camera robbed.

From then the robber begins calling him and telling him that he needs to get out of his shell if he wants his stuff back. The woman and him form a relationship over the phone and fall for each other. They do this by simultaneously imagining themselves with each other doing mundane tasks. Eating food together, talking at a table, playing the piano etc. Of course both of them are just sitting in their own rooms picturing it.

The film does a great job showing that these people can have a genuine connection. Both helping each other break out of their own shells. While both of these characters are horribly depressed the film manages to be incredibly fun to watch at points. There's a wonderful scene where they throw a party at Aloys (private investigator man) house. Where all the people Aloys has come into contact with during the movie are dancing and having a good time.

This is what really surprised me about this film. Where 'Her' Focuses on relationships this film focuses more on people in relationships. And It has a great grasp on its characters. They are both sad, lonely people but they both have distinct voices. We understand them and their struggle. Which just makes us want to see them connect more.

For me, 'Her' is a far superior film but 'Aloys' has quite a few surprises up its sleeve for anyone willing to give it a chance. It talks a lot about relationship expectations vs reality without becoming sappy or unbelievable. We see these two picture themselves in a perfect, bright, colorful, happy relationship when they haven't even met each other. And its this realization that hits you time and time again throughout these sequences.

And every time it does you just feel a little worse. There was numerous times when I was just yelling, "TAKE HER OUT FOR REAL!" to myself. While this is a film that I do like, it isn't perfect. As it marches to the finish it starts to feel a bit full of itself. There are times when we jump around between reality and numerous different fantasies and I was left wondering, why? I wanted an explanation for all of it that never came.

It felt like the film didn't really know where to go near the end. So, it just threw in various dream like sequences that didn't fit with what was happening. That being said, the last shot of the film almost completely redeems it. It's the basic, so close but so far. And it works so amazingly well for this movie.

Overall, I really liked this movie. It's genuinely well constructed and written. But what makes this film work, is the characters. You actually know and like these two people. They share a bond that feels real. Even outside of the main romance, this film feels like a movie made by someone who's been in the business for a while. It's breathtaking in it's style, framing, and blocking of shots. If the end was tightened up this could've been one of my favorite films of the year. As it is, this is still a great movie that I quite enjoyed.

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.

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.