Aurora (2010)

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Movie
Original title Aurora
Country of production Romania , France , Germany , Switzerland
original language Romanian
Publishing year 2010
length 181 minutes
Rod
Director Cristi Puiu
script Cristi Puiu
production Anca Puiu
Bobby Păunescu
Philippe Bober
Dan Wechsler
camera Viorel Sergovici
cut Joachim Stroe
occupation

Aurora is a 2010 Romanian feature film directed by Cristi Puiu who wrote, directed, and starred the book. He depicts simple everyday scenes of a middle-aged man who becomes a murderer, with little dialogue and often in static plan sequences. Since he keeps brief information about the background of the protagonist, especially his relationships with other characters, the story is puzzling and encourages the audience to actively watch. The work had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival .

action

In an apartment, Viorel and Gina, who was given a very expensive dress by another man, are talking about Gina's daughter's school reading. Then Viorel drives through the city at night, sneaks over railroad tracks, observes a little street on the outskirts at dawn. In the company, he asks a colleague in a certain tone back a sum of money that the colleague owed him. He picks up cartridges for a shotgun from a friend. Apparently disoriented, he moves through the city and a supermarket, avoiding other people.

In an apartment that has not been fully furnished, he cleans up this and that. While showering, he notices that water is dripping through the ceiling from the apartment above him. The son of the family there let the bathtub overflow, for which the mother and later the father berated him and apologized to Viorel. He gets a visit from Pusa and a friend, who are surprised that he has not made progress with painting the walls. In the city he sits in the car and eats a sandwich. Then he goes to a gun shop, where it takes him longer to choose between two rifles. In the evening he receives a visit from an older friend who takes some furniture and objects with him; Viorel orders that he and his helpers are not allowed to take some books and records with them. At night he takes out a rifle and puts it together; then he checks possible positions in which he can shoot himself, and finally he fires into a pillow. As unseen as possible, he sneaks into the parking garage of a hotel. He ambushes a man and a woman who get into a car and shoots them both. At home he packs a few things. He goes to the apartment where Gina lives with her daughter and another man. He picks up the daughter who is going to be on a school trip to take her to the train station. Then he drives to Pusa with some suitcases, where he makes it clear to their partner that he doesn't like him and that he shouldn't touch his things. Before the day had started, he drove to the little road on the outskirts and entered a house where a friend let him in. They talk little while preparing a meal. Then he kills her, takes the rifle out of the car, and fires at the corpse. When the older friend who had previously fetched things from Viorel's apartment comes home a little later, Viorel shoots him too. In town he knocks on a fashion store that is not yet open and asks for Andrea. The shop assistants fail to get rid of him, he pushes his way into the shop and accuses the women of hiding Andrea. After a while he leaves the shop. To the displeasure of the teacher, he picks up his daughter, who is currently in a theater rehearsal, from school. Since he doesn't have a key to Pusa's apartment, he gives it to the neighbor. He eats a sandwich on the street before he goes to a police station. The officers take their time and attend to their coffee and private matters first before hearing Viorel. He states that the man murdered in the parking garage is his ex-wife's divorce lawyer, but that he does not know the woman who is accompanying him. The two acquaintances killed in the house on the outskirts are his former in-laws. He did not want the divorce from Amalia, but she let other people influence her. He has two daughters. After the corpse is confirmed by telephone, the senior officer decides that the testimony will be recorded.

Reviews

According to the film service, “one breathtaking scene follows the next” in the last hour of the film, such as the protagonist's visit to the boutique, one of “the most intense, best moments”. The film is precisely staged and forces the audience to think a lot. But it does not reward patience, and only with the interpretive performance of the viewer does the plot make sense, which is why Puius' approach cannot “completely satisfy” and remains “ambivalent” in the overall impression. He said he wanted to make a clear statement of his own, so that “in the end, the viewer is no longer irritated, but will find exactly what he has already thought about Romania, the cinema and the people.” In a Cannes review The Sight & Sound said it to Aurora: “Even if the three hours are not exactly justified, a two-and-a-half-hour cut could turn it into a masterpiece of retreat cinema.” According to the assessment in Positif , Aurora is a “strange thing, half ethnological documentary , half exploration of a sick mind. ”The film does not practice effects and does not introduce a monstrous main character, but rather depicts routine everyday life and obvious abysses of banality. It is true that it has lengths, especially during the first hour, but it testifies to the maturity of Romanian cinema.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rüdiger Suchsland : Aurora . In: film-dienst , No. 9/2012
  2. Nick James , Lee Marshall, Geoff Andrew, Jonathan Romney: Cannes 2010. Another year, another planet . In: Sight & Sound, July 2010, p. 18
  3. ^ "FG": Cannes 2010. Notes sur les films . In: Positif , July / August 2010. p. 78