Variety Critics’ Choice: Europe Now! 2004 / Aaltra / Belgium, France 2004
Two nasty wheelchair-bound neighbours journey from Belgium to Finland in a wicked road movie with a difference.
Unsympathetic characters generate wicked mirth in Belgian comic duo Benoît Delépine’s and Gustave Kervern´s Aaltra, a road movie with a difference. There´s no moralizing as two nasty wheelchair-bound neighbors try to take advantage of everyone around them, and wry performances and handsome B&W widescreen lensing make the voyage feel like an agreeable detour. Gus (Kervern) is an uptight white-collar worker with a volcanically angry worldview. His slovenly neighbor, Ben (Delepine), is a layabout farmer who enjoys being a thorn in Gus´ side. Crushed by a tractor, they join forces on a journey to Finland to lay siege to the factory that built the offending tractor. Dialogue is pared to the minimum, and an especially big laugh for cineastes occurs in the last scene.
Jay Weissberg
90 min / Black & white, 35 mm
Director Benoit Delépine, Gustave Kervern
/ Screenplay Benoit Delépine, Gustave Kervern
/ Dir. of Photography Hugues Poulain, Jackson Elizondo
/ Editor Anne-Laure Guegan
/ Producer Vincent Tavier, Guillaume Malandrin, Adriana Piasek-Wanski
/ Production La Parti Production, koprodukce / co-production: 0F2B Productions
/ Cast Benoit Delépine, Gustave Kervern, Aki Kaurismäki
/ Contact Funny Balloons, La Parti Production
Funny Balloons
4 bis rue Saint Sauveur, 75002, Paris
France
Phone: +33 140 130 586
Fax: +33 142 333 499
E-mail: [email protected]
La Parti Production
15, rue Alfred Cluysenaar, 1060, Brussels
Belgium
Phone: +32 2 534 6808
Fax: +32 2 534 7818
E-mail: [email protected]
Gustave Kervern
Benoit Delépine
Veronique Bouffard
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