[Bielinsky] once again hits the bull's eye with his precise handling of suspense. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 15, 2023

If less neatly realized than Nine Queens, The Aura is the more ambitious film. It is all the more haunting for suggesting narrative possibilities that Bielinsky was just beginning to explore.

| Nov 19, 2013

This sounds like it has the makings of a first-rate crime thriller, and it is, but the writer-director's aim is closer to that of a more playful Andrei Tarkovsky.

| Jul 6, 2010

Tense and twisty, this is what thrillers should be about.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 13, 2008

I have to admit I was more than intrigued by a film featuring an epileptic taxidermist with a photographic memory who fancies that he can commit the perfect crime.

Full Review | Oct 20, 2007

It's intriguing and absorbing, this thriller about a lonely taxidermist caught up in a shooting accident, a case of mistaken identity and a heist.

| Mar 19, 2007

This character-heavy crime thriller from Argentina occasionally gets off track, straying into territory that has little to do with the main story line. But they are interesting digressions, and it's sort of nice to have a movie that's so unpredictable.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 16, 2007

A startling psychological drama with plenty of unexpected twists, a worthy follow-up [to] Fabian Bielinsky['s] riveting debut Nine Queens.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 16, 2007

A fuzzy attempt at significance that seems as aimlessly lost in the woods as its heist-plotting characters.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 9, 2007

A delight to look at, and full of both beautiful music and beautiful silences.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 9, 2007

With "The Aura," his final picture, the director adopts a moody atmosphere to convey an original heist thriller set in the mysterious Patagonian forests.

| Mar 9, 2007

It's less a deconstruction of the heist film than an ambitious contemplation of our fascination with the genre...

| Original Score: B | Mar 1, 2007

The movie is cause for both rejoicing and despair. The good news it's an absorbing, intelligent film. The bad is that there will be no more from the gifted [late director] Bielinsky.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 1, 2007

It's tough to get behind a character who doesn't even seem to care about himself.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 28, 2007

Visually, the film is almost perfect, with a weird, expressionistic sensibility considerably more sophisticated than the low-fi street shooting of Nine Queens, while the imaginative piano score trickles between pastoral harmony and primal discord.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 3, 2007

A haunting character-study-cum-crime thriller that marks the maturation of a significant filmmaking talent.

| Original Score: A- | Feb 2, 2007

The flavor is a decidedly mournful one, unusual to find in a crime thriller, but adding layers of rich atmosphere and psychological depth to a familiar but nerve-wracking genre tale.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 25, 2007

The Aura is richer and less showy than Nine Queens, and it lifts off from the gangster genre to contemplate deeper mysteries. Reminiscent of Antonioni's The Passenger in its obsession with fate and choice.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 13, 2007

A somber mood of bleak lives is enhanced by muted colors. The many unusual aspects keep The Aura continually intriguing.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 13, 2007

| Original Score: C+ | Jan 13, 2007