Film / El Aura

An obsession. A secret. An opportunity. A plan

El Aura (The Aura) is a 2005 Argentine psychological thriller neo noir film written and directed by Fabián Bielinsky, mostly known for directing the both cult classic and audience favorite Nine Queens.

Starring Ricardo Darín, Dolores Fonzi, Alejandro Awada, Jorge D'Elía, Pablo Cedrón, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart and Walter Reyno.

It follows a No Name Given embittered Taxidermist (Darín) who suffers from epilepsy and often fantasizes about commiting the perfect robbery and openly shares his fantasies and schemes with his equally bitter friend Sontag (Awada) much to his bother. One day, they both go hunting and in the middle of the woods, far far away from home, the Taxidermist may have found the perfect chance to fulfill his fantasy.

This was Bielinsky second and last film shortly before his demise from a heart attack in 2006.

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El Aura includes examples of these tropes:

• all lowercase letters: The main title at the poster, as well the opening credits.

• Armor-Piercing Response: After the taxidermist accidentally drives off a deer before Sontag could hunt it, he gets mad and verbally humiliates him and when Sontag's pushing goes too far, they have this spicy exchange:

  Sontag: Are you gonna hunt a deer? You've got to have a lot of balls to do that, you know?

  Taxidermist: What kind of balls? The same kind you need to beat the shit out of your wife and ruin her life?

• Be Careful What You Wish For: After spending his whole life fantasizing about rally the perfect heist, he finds himself with the perfect chance to make his fantasy true; He goes hunting with his friend, Sontag, an accidentally ends up killing a man who turns out to be the member of a criminal gang and the owner of the cabin they're currently staying in. But of course, once the expected happens, nothing good can come up of it.

• Beware the Quiet Ones: The taxidermist is shy and he often seems like the kind of person that let other people walk over him, however he ends up almost succesfully rallying a heist without any prior expierience and kills Sosa by the end of the film.

• Big Bad Wannabe: The Taxidermist, even called out by Sontag... more than once.

  Sontag: What the fuck are you talking about? Who do you think you are? Billy the Kid?. You've got a very weird fantasy for a taxidermist who's never got into a fight with anyone. Not even once. Not at school, not in the street, not anywhere.

  Sontag: What's wrong with you, you jerk? You're the master criminal but you can't bear to see an animal's blood?

• Becoming the Mask: By the end of the film, seems like the Taxidermist went back to his usual embalmer work and usual predictable life. However the final shot reveals that not only he took Dietrich's dog with him but also, the deer skull trophy and, probably, the gun that was hidden behind it, the same gun he used to kill Sosa.

• Bittersweet Ending: Emphasis on "bitter" but after all the crap went down and the display of sour unlikable characters the film ends on a relatively good note: We see The Taxidermist back to his work studio safe and sound, took Dietrich's dog with him and Diana moves away to start a new life, away from Dietrich's cabin. Still, Julio is no longer with her, and for what we know, she doesn't know her brother is dead along with other innocent people that died during the robbery.

• Book Ends: The films starts and ends with the Taxidermist doing his work while listening to Vivaldi's "Alla Rustica"

• Boom, Headshot!: How Julio dies, shot in the head by Sosa

• Broken Bird: Diana.

• Bungled Suicide: Sontag's wife tries to off herself by mixing sleeping pills and alcohol and ends up hospitalized, so he'll have to go back to the city. This ends setting up the events fittingly for the main plot to start off with the Taxidermist totally on his own.

• Chekhov's Gun: While inspecting Dietrich's workshop, the Taxidermist finds a gun hidden behind skull trophy in the wall. The same gun he'll use at the climax to shoot Sosa.

• Chekhov's Skill: The Taxidermist mentions early in the film that he has a prodigious spatial memory, which will be come in handy later when he'll have to remember Dietrich's organization chart with all the names of the people involved in the heist, numbers and roles.

• Chiaroscuro: Emphasizes the Film Noir tone of the movie perfectly.

• Cold Opening: There's a introductory scene that begins In Medias Res that show us the Taxidermist on the floor recovering from a seizure at a ATM. Cue the opening credits.

• Crapsack World: In the best Film Noir fashion, the reality around the characters feels dark and hopeless and every person we'll meet during the course of the film is either rude, cynical or just plain agressive.
  • Even if he's scared and haunted by his epilepsy, the Taxidermist feels somewhat attached to the brief moment of conscience before a seizure (the aura) precisely because he becomes free from this pitiless reality.

• Darker and Edgier: Displaying a depressing atmosphere, dark subject matter, psychological horrors, hopeless characters, heavy violence and onscreen deaths, Bielinsky previous film feels lighthearted in comparison.

• Domestic Abuse: A recurring theme throught the film
  • In the first scene we see the Taxidermist being deliberately neglectful towards his wife, actively ignoring her pleads
  • Is stated in a dialogue between the Taxidermist and Sontag that the latter was a hitter with his wife, to the point of ruining her life.
  • The Taxidermist learns in a chat with Diana that Dietrich is a highly abusive husband that takes advantage of his power.
  • The relationship between Julio and Diana is pretty disfunctional as well, to the point Julio is verbally and physically abusive to his sister.

• The Dog Bites Back: After spending the whole movie being BULLIED by Sosa and then betrayed by both him and Montero, the Taxidermist manages to shoot Sosa dead.

• Drone of Dread: The scenes previous to a seizure are directed from the POV of the Taxidermist and features this kind of soundtrack.
  • In contrast to the more tranquil background music or just Reality Has No Soundtrack moments trought the film, which gives said scenes a Psychological Horror feel, apart from the rest.

• Dysfunction Junction: All of the characters are deeply flawed individuals with their dark traits getting the spotlight due the film opressing atmosphere.
  • The Taxidermist suffers from epilepsy and while he's on treatment and have mixed feelings about his condition, he's terrified about not being able to control the seizures. Apart from that, he's a sullen introvert that got recently abbandoned by his wife and has a weird dark fantasy about rallying a heist
  • Sontag is Deadpan Snarker jerkass with a history of Domestic Abuse.
  • Diana is a pretty nice and decent person but she's still a psychological damaged Broken Bird, embittered by her own traumatic experiences with much older and highly abusive husband, Dietrich.

• The Evils of Free Will: Perhaps the reason why the Taxidermist describes the "aura" as something "horrible yet beautiful", because it doesn't matter he wants it or not, he has to surrender to the experience and that lack of choice is what makes it actually liberating. In contrast to his actual situation, in which he absurdely choose to put himself in a deadly scenario just to prove something to himself.

• Fantasy Sequence: A total lucid and conscious one; One of the first scenes features the Taxidermist and his friend Sontag in line at a bank, the Taxidermist describes to Sontag a hypothetical perfectly executed heist (or at least, how a perfect heist should be executed according to him) accompanied by onscreen imagery of the robbers executing it.

• Film Noir: Overwhelming bleakness, pessimisism, a good display of cynical characters, chiaroscuro cinematography... The Aura is a textbook neo-noir film.

• Genre-Busting: It blends psychological drama and psychological thriller, neo-noir, crime thriller, with mystery and heist film elements.

• Genre Savvy: Played with and Inverted: The Taxidermist wants to be the protagonist of a heist film so bad. And when he accidentally kills a man in the woods while trying to hunt, he finds out that said man is Dietrich, one important member of a criminal gang planning to steal the profits from a casino. Then, instead of running away, he takes Dietrich's place to be a part of the hit and he handles the situation skillfully for a while, to the point the viewer is actually invested in the ongoing robbery... however it turns out to be more a case of Wrong Genre Savvy, since the psychological thriller/drama nature of the film prevails whereas the Taxidermist is constanly assaulted by his own fears, insecurities, anxieties and the constant posibility of stress induced seizure.

• Hair-Trigger Temper: Sosa. And Julio whenever he's around his sister.

• Jerkass: Almost all of the cast, except Diana... but Deadpan Snarker, domestic abuser Sontag takes the cake.
  • Sosa, all the way trought. Perhaps partially justified due his not unfounded trust issues toward the Taxidermist, butt still he often feels like a unnecesary agressive, rude and miserable person.
  • Julio, Diana's brother. At first glance it seems like they're protective of each other but as the movie progresses, Julio mistreatment of Diana gets worse and worse.

• Journey to Find Oneself: By the end of the film the Taxidermist took Dietrich's dog with him, he got something out of the whole experience, and while remain ambiguous, one can conclude that the Taxidermist learned a lot about overcoming his own personal obstacles.

• Let's Get Dangerous!: Well, things look already pretty bad for the Taxidermist as it is, don't they? He went hunting and accidentally killed a man while trying to shoot a deer. There are two options; run away and hope to never be found or do the right thing and turn yourself in. The Taxidermist is now inspecting the man he killed. Weird but OK. He realizes that he shoot the man near a workshop that belongs to him, so keeps investigating. He finds out that the recently deceased is the core member of a dangerous criminal gang planning to make big robbery. Now is time for the Taxidermist to run as far as possible, change his name, get away from the city or something that shows he has a little of survival instinct. Instead, he decides to take the dead man's place without telling any of the criminals that he killed their man and try to go on with the heist as his remplacement as if nothing happened. Yeah, good luck with that.

• Male Gaze: Deconstructed. There's a scene when we see Diana (played by Dolores Fonzi, no less), through her bedroom window, changing her clothes from the point of view of the Taxidermist... only to see the horrible bruises on her back product of Dietrich's systematic abuse.

• May–December Romance: "Romance" is far from accurate, but Diana said in a dialogue with the Taxidermist that Dietrich is much older than her.

• Needs More Love: A singular case, since it was a box office hit and a critics darling when it was released. However, while fairly known in Argentina, is a relatively obscure film outisde the country that never got a Blu-Ray release with very few online streaming sites featuring it. By this time, the only way to see the movie in a decent quality is acquiring a DVD copy.

• No Name Given: Again, a singular case; according to The Other Wiki and the DVD's synopsis in the back cover, the Taxidermist's name is Esteban Espinosa, but that name is never said or seen on the film and even in the end credits the character appears only as "Taxidermist"
  • It has been said that the name appeared in the first script but left out later.

• Not So Above It All: The Taxidermist may be shy and quiet but there's something he's certain of; his own intelligence and potential to strategize perfectly crafted heist plans. In his own words "People are robbing all the time, but they do it badly, because they're idiots". However later at the film's climax when he's seems to be skillfully leading Dietrich's strategy, he forgets a CRUCIAL part of the original plan, which causes everything to go downhill.

• Plot-Triggering Death: Dietrich's accidental killing at the hands of the Taxidermist is what puts the main plot in motion.

• This Is Reality: Sure, the Taxidermist may be a potential great strategist, with great ideas to rally a heist. However he doesn't count with the fact that his own inexperience and lack of Street Smart is going to be easily noted by a bunch of highly unscrupulous criminals. And, of course, the fact that reality is a little more complicated and messy than his perfectionist fantasies.

  Sosa: What the fuck were you thinking? Did you really think we'd share the money with you and the kid?. Can anyone really be so fucking stupid?

• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Urien gets the fuck away once he realizes that the Taxidermist is no related at all with Dietrich and he's randomly occupying his place.

• Show, Don't Tell: In contrast to Bielinsky's previous highly quotable movie, The Aura is light on dialogue and relies heavier on symbolism.

• Shout-Out: In a argument between the Taxidermist and Urien, the latter points out that on long weekends, due to the larger income, the casino reforces security by putting a third guard on the armored truck that carries the earnings. The Taxidermist then remembers that this was highlighted on the Dietrich's chart with the lines "Do Not Forget About The Third Man"

• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Definitively siding HARD with the cynicism.