Jason goes to SFIFF--Closing Night

But I chose not to attend the closing festivities. Instead I decided the best way to end a film festival, in my utterly exhausted and brain dead state, is with a 3 hour film that requires a little extra concentration.

AURORA is a crime story, but one carefully stripped of all genre elements. Viorel (director Cristi Puiu is a quiet man who goes about his life in Bucharest. He redecorates his apartment. He talks to the upstairs neighbors when their son overflows the bathtub and causes some water damage on his roof. He cleans and tests his guns. And eventually we (the audience) catch on that he's planning a shooting. I hate to say this, but it kind of reminded me of BULLET IN THE HEAD. I hate to say that because I hated BULLET IN THE HEAD, while I didn't hate AURORA. At 3 hours it's tedious, often boring, and always a challenge. But I didn't hate it, I was fascinated by it.

And that's how my SFIFF 2011 ended.

Running Time: 181 minutes

My Total Minutes: 235,432