Aaltra (2004)

Wonderful Movie

Redundant and unnecessary.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

. . . (they're all moochers and thieves), new moms (they'll just ignore the baby monitor to pleasure door-to-door salesmen as soon as their husbands leave for work), Germans (stingy--"We have strawberries; take a BIG one"), farmers (road hogs and polluters), RV families (if they find you high and dry, they'll strand you in the drink), businessmen (can't spare a quarter for a panhandler since they don't have anything smaller than a twenty), sports fans (too sensitive to be exposed to "gimps"), recreational bikers (they rudely rev noisy machines while night-shifters are trying to sleep), karaoke singers (cannot even pronounce the lyrics), small business manufacturers (their products are death traps), Finns (they spend all day drinking), management (it keeps workers so busy their spouses are driven to cheat), parents (who stuff children's brains with misinformation) . . . Bottom line: don't watch AALTRA if you prefer your flicks to be politically correct.

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

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.

This movie was excellent, the jokes are completely different from the TV show, it's subtle humour you laugh just with the situations and the faces of the actors which are for the most non pro.The acting of the main character is good, I like the landscape they choose and the old texture of this black and white movie which remind me of "C'est arrivé près de chez vous".Sure everybody won't be able to laugh, especially non-french speaker, if you don't know France and their strange country people, you won't like this movie, but still I am disappointed that the rating is so low for this movie because its humour is really special, it's almost a snuff movie :)For me it's a good movie, made without money totally independent.8/10