a film by Fabián Bielinsky
Esteban Espinosa is a quiet, introverted taxidermist living in Buenos Aires who suffers epilepsy attacks and is obsessed with committing the perfect crime. He claims that the police are too stupid to solve the crime when it's well executed, that the robbers are too stupid to execute it the right way, and that he could do it himself relying on his photographic memory and his strategic planning skills. When he is invited on a hunting trip in the Patagonian forest, an accident gives him the chance of his life, the opportunity to commit the perfect crime.
Esteban's work is solitary and conducted in silence, paying meticulous attention to the restorative detail of the animals he prepares for museum exhibits, yet incongruously he has a strong distaste for hunting, violence and bloodshed. His obsession with planning the perfect robbery also seems in complete contrast to his passive nature and lack of criminal intent. When his friend and fellow taxidermist, Sontag, suggests he accompanies him on a hunting trip in Patagonia, to take the place of a hunting friend who has had to cancel, Esteban is reluctant to accept. But then on discovering a note from his wife who has just left him, he changes his mind and decides to go.
On his first ever hunting trip, in the calm of the Patagonian forest, with one squeeze of the trigger his dreams are made real. Esteban has accidentally killed a man who turns out to be a real criminal and he inherits his scheme, the heist of an armoured truck carrying casino profits. Moved by morbid curiosity, and later by an inexorable flow of events, the taxidermist sees himself thrown into his fantasies, piece by piece completing a puzzle irremediably encircling him. He does so whilst struggling with his greatest weakness, epilepsy. Before each seizure he is visited by the "aura", a paradoxical moment of confusion and enlightenment where the past and future seem to blend. Caught up in a world of complex new rules and frightening violence, Esteban's lack of experience puts him in real danger and whilst his quick mind and acute visual memory enable him to link all the pieces of the heist puzzle together, he overlooks one tiny detail.
An unusual, subtly crafted and superbly acted neo-noir crime thriller. Slow-paced with minimal dialogue, it draws us deep into the isolated world of this complex character. The stunningly beautiful cinematography with its palette of silvers and muted greens, together with a highly atmospheric use of soundtrack music, emphasises the sense of tension, detachment, uncertainty and unease.
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