#16: The Aura

I honestly don't know how we came to seeing this film, I guess it was because I randomly owned this Sundance Film Festival DVD. Ricardo Darin, the lead actor, plays a taxidermist who manages to go with a friend on a hunting trip, which goes wrong.

Throughout the movie, I was saying to Taylor that this movie reminded me of a foreign mix of The Town (#10) and the movie Armored (#12) that we saw. If you haven't realized yet from the poster, The Aura is a foreign film. It does have sub-titles and you will have to read pretty closely because it goes by quickly. I thought this movie was a little odd; it was very scattered to me. I just thought Ricardo's role of being a taxidermist is a somewhat tedious and completely irrelevant.

I did not fall in love with this movie, at times I started to get bored and almost fall asleep. This film was disappointing because I've been sitting staring at the DVD cover waiting to see this movie thinking it would actually be pretty good, but not so much. The ending was atrocious, wait let me rephrase that, THERE WAS NO ENDING! I looked at Taylor when the movie ended and said "Wait did the movie really just end?" I guess that's how the director, Fabian Bielinsky, had intended the film to be. Although, I do want to give this movie some credit for having a potentially good idea, but it didn't pan out the way I would've liked. Honestly, I would most likely pass on it if I had another chance.

Overall Rating: 6.0 / 10

- Josh Berg

The Aura was an extremely unique movie. I don't know if I've ever seen anything even remotely like it. It's an Argentinian film about a taxidermist whose hunting trip takes some unexpected turns. He finds himself in the middle of a network of organized criminals, and the allure of crime keeps him from running away.

The oddness comes in the blatantly unsatisfying ending. Maybe there were more layers of the film that I wasn't tapped into, but it seemed a very strange and lacking ending. I wouldn't say I hated the movie overall--it definitely had a feeling of realness and confusion to it--but I feel like despite  everything, nothing really happened.

I don't regret watching The Aura, but I don't think I'll watch it again either. It's definitely one only to watch if you like subtitles and foreign indie films. If Transformers is your favorite movie in the whole wide world, stay far far away from The Aura.

Overall Rating: 6.7 / 10

-Taylor Dobbs