Aurora

Here's a mesmerizing new film from the director of the critically acclaimed The Death of Mister Lazarescu.

Aurora is a murder mystery turned on its head—where the motive is the mystery, not the culprit. A character study of an ordinary person driven to kill, the film follows Viorel (played by Cristi Puiu, the film's director and one of the leading figures of the Romanian New Wave) as he tries and fails to deal with his broken marriage. Upending the idea of crime as entertainment, Aurora spends more time with Viorel during the moments between the violence than with the murderous acts themselves. With gallows humor and keen social observation, the film is an unflinching and rigorous investigation of what compels a person to commit a murder.

After Lazarescu, Aurora is the second installment in Puiu's planned series "Six Films from the Outskirts of Bucharest." (181 mins., 35mm)