In "Aurora", the plot is basically: patient can't get Xanax so he gets a gun :) Thus, a failure of capitalism in Romania. (It was the early years)
In a pathetic replica of "Falling Down", Puiu's no Michael Douglas and the entire action was already summarized by another reviewer: potato peeling, domestic talk about whether Little Red Riding Hood's granny comes out naked from the wolf's belly, plus some close encounters of the third kind of male protagonist with female personnel of various businesses, lastly the shootings. This is not a Romanian "Taxi driver" and Puiu is no Fassbender in the shower either. Last one shoots people as professional hitman in his last film (I recommend that one instead, as it's just as long but more entertaining and poetic). Also, the police station doesn't look like those in the developed West and the sound quality is on par with the social interactions in the gloomy Bucharest ante-EU. Not that there was any whatsoever need for quality in sound. Or image.
Puiu's character is a twisted personality, one who wants rules bended and exceptions, just not for the people he kills and not when he "has to turn in" and to let the police do their job. A "justification" for his behaviour might be his sickness and the implied short life expectancy. The worldview of this maniac who has a college degree as an engineer and his living space chokeful of books but shares talibanic and orthodox mindset that wives can't ever divorce, is baffling and a source of absurd in itself.
This main character is neither a hero nor an antihero and this was neither a movie nor a lack of one.
It's sad this is all Romanian cinema has to come up with. Romanian cinema is dead. RIP. Previously, it was the case that the sound was poor, yet the films were great. Nowadays poor are both the sound and whatever lines their characters say. I am aware I may sound harsh and unjustified in my critique, after all it's a movie released 14 years ago. That's time even for police stations to modernise, Bucharester colon to live stress-free or at least a more streamlined acquisition of xanax and interpersonal speech. There's hope.
In a pathetic replica of "Falling Down", Puiu's no Michael Douglas and the entire action was already summarized by another reviewer: potato peeling, domestic talk about whether Little Red Riding Hood's granny comes out naked from the wolf's belly, plus some close encounters of the third kind of male protagonist with female personnel of various businesses, lastly the shootings. This is not a Romanian "Taxi driver" and Puiu is no Fassbender in the shower either. Last one shoots people as professional hitman in his last film (I recommend that one instead, as it's just as long but more entertaining and poetic). Also, the police station doesn't look like those in the developed West and the sound quality is on par with the social interactions in the gloomy Bucharest ante-EU. Not that there was any whatsoever need for quality in sound. Or image.
Puiu's character is a twisted personality, one who wants rules bended and exceptions, just not for the people he kills and not when he "has to turn in" and to let the police do their job. A "justification" for his behaviour might be his sickness and the implied short life expectancy. The worldview of this maniac who has a college degree as an engineer and his living space chokeful of books but shares talibanic and orthodox mindset that wives can't ever divorce, is baffling and a source of absurd in itself.
This main character is neither a hero nor an antihero and this was neither a movie nor a lack of one.
It's sad this is all Romanian cinema has to come up with. Romanian cinema is dead. RIP. Previously, it was the case that the sound was poor, yet the films were great. Nowadays poor are both the sound and whatever lines their characters say. I am aware I may sound harsh and unjustified in my critique, after all it's a movie released 14 years ago. That's time even for police stations to modernise, Bucharester colon to live stress-free or at least a more streamlined acquisition of xanax and interpersonal speech. There's hope.