Watch Aaltra For Free

Great Film overall

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

A commuter and a farmhand get in one another's way often, causing tensions and frustrations between them. When the farmhand causes the commuter to miss his train, lose his job and arrive home early to find his wife having an affair, the commuter and the farmhand get into a fight around the farm equipment and end up badly injured – both ending up paralysed from the waist down. Seemingly stuck with one another, they set out on a trip to Finland to seek out the manufacturer of the equipment that put them in this state.This sat on my harddrive for several months before I got around to watching it and, if you read the plot summary and know that it is a black & white and in French, you will perhaps understand why. Unsure of what to expect I settled down to it – thinking it unfair that I neglect it in favour of "easier" American blockbusters etc. What I found was an unspectacular but clever look at how disabled people are treated and viewed. The road trip aspect is not much more than a frame to allow this to happen and indeed even the conclusion is making the point in an amusing way. In regards narrative then it doesn't really satisfy because of this being the weaker aspect but I found the look at disability to be enough to cover this.The writer and director do well to avoid sentimentality or preaching and they are very even handed across the telling. We see people being overly kind, people ignoring them, people picking them and so on. Fairly we also seeing them taking advantage of goodwill and being just as big a pair of jerks as able-bodied people can be. It sounds simple to say it but the film does do a good job with this theme and, although not hilarious, it did produce some dark laughs along the way. Writer and director Delépine and de Kervern do a good job in the two lead roles and also work very well with a limited budget.Overall then not a perfect film but a cleverer one that I initially gave it credit for. The narrative is not a lot more than a frame to allow the dark comic look at the treatment of the two characters but in this regard it works well enough while the examples of treatment are fair and well delivered.

Forget about Thelma and Louise (1991), The Sugarland Express (1974) and others: this is a road movie with a real difference – actually many differences.First, it's shot in beautiful, stark black-and-white, always the best, in my opinion, for watching faces – the shadows bringing out the grimaces, smiles, sadness, despair etc, in a way that colour misses. Second, most of the players in this story are nameless. Third, there is virtually no musical sound track; but there is a hilarious scene at a biker gathering when le chanteur finlandais (Bouli Lanners) sings – in English – the well know blues song, 'Sonny'. And, finally, the story is told more or less visually, as good cinema should; while the sparse dialog fills in the narrative 'gaps' for the viewer.It doesn't start as a road movie at all: two locals in a provincial town have an argument that results in both of them rendered paralyzed from the waist down. After a period of hospitalization, they both return to their homes in wheelchairs, realizing that their lives are ruined unless they try to get compensation from the company that produced the faulty equipment that caused their injuries. So, they decide to go to Finland together, to the headquarters of the company – Aaltra – and demand compensation. And so, they begin their journey…in wheelchairs! The rest of the story isn't really about Aaltra, at all. Instead, the directors – who also play the two paralyzed protagonists – use that scenario to explore and satirize how ordinary people treat the wheelchair bound and vice-versa, setting up some moments of side-splitting humour and irony as the two travel 3000 km to finally reach their objective. And, what an objective it is...which I'll leave you to discover.For me, this movie is a treat, a feast about why people go out of their way to be helpful, kind, difficult, unpleasant, devious, obnoxious etc – and what can happen when they lose the capacity for trying to understand another's point of view. It's an object lesson for all, and a very funny one to boot.Highly recommended for all lovers of good cinema and clever comedy.

A Franco-Belgian Yarmush but with more, much more irony; as in Yarmush, however, there is great respect for those on the down site of life. No wasted sentimentalism. Some scenes are built in the manner of Chaplin, with an unmoving camera and tripod waiting for things to happen in front of it. Gags are basically social or visual rather than intellectual. One or two scenes appear to have been snipped in the middle, leaving us not quite understanding the point of it. For example, the two cripples at some point ride in a van, in the back of which are four shirtless guys with eyes closed. We never learn what they're doing there. Are they drunks, corpses, sleepers...? Right after that, we see a naked woman splayed out on the ship taking them to Finland. Who is she, why is she there? No clues. Technically,however, the high contrast and grainy quality of the B&W is almost painful to watch.

Overall this movie is so much better and funny then any comedy I have seen for the last few years. Jokes are cynical and sarcastic sometimes, black humour style often, however they are super original !Maybe the plot/scenario, especially the end, is not the strongest part of the movie, but over 30 superb scenes make well up for this and make it overall a great movie in its genre.It also intends to make you reflect on your position towards handicap persons and the way they are generally treated in our society. Whereas they are in most cases reflected as the person in need for help, the current directors/actors (same) simply exploit this situation. They were right to do so :).