out of the picture
by
Douglas Messerli
Gustave
de Kervern and Benoît Delépine (writers and directors) Aaltra / 2004
My
editor Pablo Capra has joked that I find it necessary to include at least one
essay in every volume of My Year
wherein I refer to Laurel and Hardy, or their progenitors, Bouvard and
Pécuchet. Yet I don’t intentionally seek out characters who remind me of these
figures, but simply come across them annually in the literature, theater, film,
and other genres I cover.
This year, I have come upon the pairing
once again, quite accidentally, in watching a Filmstruck Belgium movie of which
I’d never before heard, Aaltra,
directed by and starring the
comedians Gustave de Kervern and Benoît
Delépine, the husky de Kervern reminding one of Hardy, with his thinner and
leaner neighbor, Delépine,
standing in for Laurel. The two, who begin the film by absolutely detesting
each other, by necessity pair up to take a road trip from Belgium to Finland,
and are strangely described as twins—despite their absolutely different
appearances and behaviors—by many along the way.
But they are “twins,” in the sense that
both, having begun a mad fight in de Kervern’s Aaltra farm tractor, they have
suffered a terrible accident and are now resettled into wheelchairs for life.
The comment demonstrates, as do several of the snippets of conversation we
overhear on their journey, representative of just how unfeeling the able can be
when encountering the disabled. And this is very much a film about being
disabled since, after they are attacked and robbed, early in the movie, their
long journey via wheelchairs relies on their rolling down the highways between
hitchhiking.
Delépine, a motorcycle aficionado, takes
in the moto-cross races along the way, where he is sent away from the course by
real moto-cross hero, Joël Robert, but later takes advantage of another
competitor, who loans him his high-priced cycle for 3 minutes. Delépine takes
off to Finland without his “twin,” and stopped only when the owner of cycle and
de Kervern take to road via van to stop him.
At other point, the two join a family in
a camper, but soon make themselves so odious to the family, that, stopped for a
moment by the sea, the family quickly speeds off without them, leaving the two
seaside wheelchair-bound men to nearly drown as the tide comes in.
The directorial duo set up numerous
scenes in a manner somewhat reminiscent to Jacques Tati’s films. One of the
best scenes in the film reveals the very absence that the disabled must often
feel in society, as the camera, poised on two local bar-goers, speaking in a
kind of bigoted gibberish, talk, a hand, from time to time, appearing from
below to grab a pint. Their lives, so to speak, often put them out of the
picture.
When they finally find a small shed that
actually houses the Aaltra metal works; the barbarians are at the gates. They
open the door only to discover a large roomful of similarly wheelchair-bound
workers. The head executive, played by the famed Finnish filmmaker Aki
Kaurismäki, greets them as friends, offering them jobs. Now, they will truly be
bound together for the rest of their lives!
This wonderful dark comedy was a true
discovery, one I intend to visit again and again.
Los Angeles,
February 28, 2017
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