Aro Tolbukhin - En la mente del asesino

There's so many things to fall for in Aro Tolbukhin. En la mente del asesino (Inside the killer's mind), that it's very hard to talk about it without giving any kind of warning. Let's just say that this movie is like an exercise in cinema but really, really great done. It´s made with super 8, black and white shots, 35 milimeters, color, interviews, flashbacks. Aro Tolbukhin it´s like a movie made a documental or viceversa, which most peculiar aspect relays on the doubt that leaves you wondering, did he really ever existed? The movie follows the later life of an hungarian sailor that arrived in Guatemala, worked in a religious mission and then killed some people. An act for which he got caught and death penalty sentenced. The movie starts because some french documentalists got interested in this character so they interview him prior to his death. Nowadays, some more people got involved and make a deeper research of the character. The one we are witness of -the movie.

For the main part in the history we are guided by a semi slow phase to go look inside Aro´s mind, mainly in order to decode why he did what he has done. Nevertheless, the important thing is that the filmmakers never gives us a sided point of view; they left the judging for all of us and even as we may understand his actions, we clearly never justify them. So, the first half is based upon recollecting information; later things turn into Aro's childhood, giving the movie such an incredible new force (even tough never got weak or boring).

I don't mean -and don't want- to spoil anything; so the only thing left to say is that if by any chance you get this movie near you, believe me, the trip to see it is more than worthy.

ARO TOLBUKHIN:IN THE MIND OF A KILLER is fascinating in its detail but less than compelling in its execution.

I never felt that I was in a killer's mind, but I did feel the need to know more. Which is why I kept watching.

Unfortunately, not much of any great interest transpired.

Villaronga, he of IN A GLASS CAGE fame, was one of the directors of this docudrama and I sensed that he'd clipped his wings in order to take the subject on.

With compelling subject matter like GLASS CAGE and MOONCHILD, Villaronga shines, but with material like this and EL MAR (THE SEA), he seems stifled and produces turgid, paceless celluloid that's more snooze-worthy than gratifying.

Count me disappointed, though I eagerly await the director's next move.

This remarkable film dramatizes the story of the Hungarian merchant sailor and serial killer Aro Tolbukhin, and extensively uses documentary footage of its subject, shot in Guatemala during the time he spent in a Catholic mission in the country side, and when he was captured, interviewed in the jail of Pavón and finally executed by a firing squad. A work directed by a team of three filmmakers led by Agustí Villaronga (who won the Goya award for «Black Bread») the film combines footage in many formats (video, Super 8, 16 and 35mm), echoing the many levels that conform its cinematic discourse: besides the Tolbukhin case, it covers the moving story of Carme Curt, an ex nun who had a strong emotional relationship with Tolbukhin; and also the efforts of French filmmakers Lise August and Yves Keetman to bring his story to the screen in the 1980s: the impact of the material they shot of the real Tolbukhin and the people who knew him in Guatemala (a priest, his lawyer, a peasant), incredibly grows, as the dramatic sections tell the story behind the crimes to the viewer. As it unfolds, the film reveals as a rich visual experience that never tries to hide its debt to imagination: it is illustrated by a black & white film-within-the-(color)film, called «The Uninhabited Dress», that elaborates a fictional and lyrical past to Aro's life as a child and adolescent, based on true facts, given in an interview by his old Hungarian nanny, Slamár Yulané. It is more an evocation than a reconstruction, for it is not a psychological reasoning about the actions of the killer, but an illustration of coincidences in his dramatic, tragic life. As it turns out, «Aro Tolbukhin» is like a Pandora's Box in reserve, that deserves to be seen… without any prejudice.

Aro Tolbukhin burnt alive seven people in a Mission in Guatemala in the 70's. Also he declared that he had murdered another 16 people (he used to kill pregnant women, and then he set them on fire).

This movie is a documentary that portraits the personality of Aro through several interviews with people that got to know him and through some scenes played by actors based on real facts.

"Aro Tolbukhin" is a serious work, so analytical, it's not morbid at all. Such a horrifying testimony about how some childhood trauma can turn a man into a monster.

*My rate: 7/10

The film blends documentary and fictionalized sequences to tell the remarkable story of a Hungarian sailor's mental deterioration. The film traces his pathology to his childhood in Budapest while detailing murders perpetrated in rural Guatemala in the 1980s. "Aro Tolbukhin" easily engages the viewer's interest . The filmmakers provide a visually arresting portrait of a serial killer that is psychologically accurate and rich in characterization. Kudos to all involved. May this film receive wide distribution.