El Aura has a slow, almost hypnotic pace that Americans might have some trouble getting used to. But this Argentinean tale of a epileptic taxidermist who dreams of the perfect crime seems to me the closest anyone has ever come to successfully filming a American-style pulp crime novel from the 40's or 50's - it could have easily been written by Jim Thompson.
Ricardo Darin gives a fantastic performance as a emotionally repressed and marginalized man who fantasizes about stealing. He fancies himself smarter than everyone, but is so insecure he never takes any action. When he is presented with an opportunity to realize his dreams, he quickly finds he has overestimated his intellect and his bravado. But he has just enough luck and guile to keep himself afloat as the situation spins slowly out of control.
The direction and cinematography masterfully establish a mood of slightly uncomfortable inevitability. El Aura is lifelike in the sense that there are long periods of slow movement broken by sudden bursts of messy action and violence that don't have time to be reflected on or resolved in a nice tidy way before something else happens and attentions are directed elsewhere. A really interesting film, worth watching if you can find it doesn't appear it's going to be released in the States.
