Review of Aaltra

Introduction

Telecommuting office worker Ben (Benoît Delépine) and farm labourer Gus (Gustave de Kervern) are not the best of friends, although I couldn`t tell you why exactly and neither probably could they. Living in the same Belgian village, the two annoy each other, but probably neither could tell you what exactly started their intense dislike of each other. Gus has a tendency to block off the road with his tractor when Ben is driving behind him. Ben likes to get on his motorbike and ride around, sometimes in a small circular route just outside of Gus` barn home when Gus is trying to sleep. Each incident seems to harden their dislike and the vicious cycle continues.

This ends one day when Ben is summoned to his office by his angry boss who thinks Ben is taking the michael with his telecommuting. He has a half hour deadline to get there by train or be sacked, which obviously Ben misses by being stuck behind Gus` tractor…again. In a foul mood, Ben returns home to find his wife being taken from behind by some bloke in the nursery that we think is for a planned baby. Oops. Snapping, Ben gets on his bike and rides out to the field where Gus is working and gets into a fight with tragedy when the trailer of the tractor descends on them both.

The two end up in hospital, both without the use of their legs, and next to each other in the same hospital room. A short while later, with no one visiting them, the two are dropped off back home but something has changed. Not really knowing how or why, the two end up on a road trip across Europe. Ben decides he wants to visit some Moto Cross events and meet his idol Stefan Everts, Gus wants to travel to Finland to sue tractor manufacturer Aaltra for compensation. Despite not planning or wanting to travel together, the duo end up entwined and effectively joined at the hip, their attitudes to each other slowly changing over time.

Video

Filmed in 1:2.33 widescreen in Black & White, this is quite effective for this film despite nearly half of my 32" screen being black. The film itself is nicely edited with a variety of either wide shots or virtually still shots that reflect the languid pace of the film and life itself. There are also some nice shots that provide metaphors, nothing too heavy but you`d have to be blind not to notice them.

Audio

The photocopied artwork that came with this preview disc states that there are French, Flemish, English, German and Finnish soundtracks with English subtitles. On the preview disc there was only a Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0 soundtrack in Flemish (well, I`m assuming that but it could be French…) with English subtitles imbedded. Not everything is subtitled though, and whilst it was fun at points to imagine what people were saying (the argument at the seaside), at other times it was a bit annoying.

Features

Director`s Intentions - text based feature that does what it says. Not sure I agree with the director on this though, or maybe I`m just a heartless critic. Who knows?

Trailers - 3 of them, very short and effective with some of the funniest scenes in the film.

Deleted scenes - two of these but no context or subtitles. They weren`t missed.

Filmography - thought we`d seen the last of this type of extra…

Outakes - really short deleted scenes, again no context or subtitles.

Short Film - quite interesting short film that Benoît Delépine was involved in. Again no subtitles to go with the spoken language so you have no idea what`s being said, but you easily get the gist of what`s going on if you don`t quite understand why.

Conclusion

I`ll be honest, I wasn`t entirely sure what to expect when I first looked up this film on iMDB and even less sure when the artwork arrived with the disc. Still, I fired it up and was then pleasantly surprised by what I found. This is a very funny film, but not in the traditional sense. There are no planned jokes or visual punch lines beloved of Hollywood or sitcom land. This is just the reaction of the world to two really bitter blokes in wheelchairs and their reaction to the world around them. Dark humour abounds.

What I like most about this film is two-fold. Firstly it`s about two enemies (in the suburban sense) overcoming their difficulties and petty rivalry to essentially form a deep bonded friendship. That`s unspoken and would probably be denied by both, but it`s there. The second is that nothing is sugar-coated in this film. There are kind people who help the duo out and there are clearly people who either ignore them or are complete *insert expletive deletive here*. The two companions aren`t remiss from taking complete advantage either, taking some of the hospitality or kindness shown to them and throwing it straight back in the providers` faces, or alternatively trying to mug passers by from their wheelchairs for their money. Thus we see Ben and Gus dumped on the side of the road a lot from either a car, Winnebago (twice), land-rover and a bus. They are sympathetic characters due to their injuries, but then you have to remember that not only did they cause these injuries in the first place, but that their condition doesn`t automatically make them saints either. This last point also reminds me of the Timothy Dalton/Anthony Edwards film Hawks.

The pace is pretty languid but that doesn`t matter, this is a real road trip and those always contains long periods of inertia or boredom. There are also highs and funny moments, some unintentional, and this lifts the film and the viewer simultaneously. The ending is possibly the funniest bit of all, although it`s more of a funny anti-climax if you could understand that, Gus` hopes built on gaining six figure compensation from the manufacturer of agricultural material disintegrating and then a realisation from both that their lives have changed and they`ve found a place they can call home.

Marvellous stuff…