Writer and director
Fabián Bielinsky had started writing the film in the 1980s, then-titled
Un amigo del señor Dietrich (), which closely followed genre conventions and had a clear redemption arc for the protagonist. Bielinsky then took his original idea of "a guy wearing someone else's skin to satisfy his own desires" and took it in a different direction. During the writing process, Bielinsky offered Darín to take care of the character while he developed the story. Bielinsky would then take Darín's thoughts and sensations on the character and reproduce them in the script. Bielinsky stated that
The Aura was "a film almost reactive to
Nine Queens". While Bielinsky shot
Nine Queens in a way he would "disappear as director" and the writing would stand out, for
The Aura he focused on other aspects of filmmaking such as "mood, lightning, or atmosphere". The film is told entirely from the protagonist's
point of view, being present in every single scene of the film. Bielinsky had planned
The Aura as part of a "conceptual trilogy", with each film focused on a different aspect of filmmaking.
Nine Queens was the first installment, focused on
mise-en-scène,
The Aura was focused on point of view, and the third film would have been focused on
editing.
Production designer Mercedes Alfonsín was the first crew member to join the project. She had eight weeks of pre-production by herself and regularly gave Bielinsky notes on the script as he was writing it. The casting process lasted six months.
Ricardo Darín had already been cast as the protagonist, but the rest of the characters had no actors attached. According to
casting director Eugenia Levin, the role of Montero, described as "a man in his sixties with respiratory issues and a mean face", was particularly difficult to cast. Uruguayan actor
Walter Reyno was eventually chosen for the part.
The Aura began filming in mid-October 2004, taking place primarily in
Bariloche and
Buenos Aires City. In November 2004, shooting began at the
Llao Llao Hotel in Bariloche, lasting around 40 days. In December, scenes were shot at the
La Plata Museum with Darín and Awada. Filming concluded in late December 2004 in Buenos Aires. The effect of the
aura was achieved using a circular
camera dolly with a linear camera dolly over it. The camera would spin with Darín on it in front of the camera, while the camara would
dolly in while
zooming out, so that the background would move farther away. The scenes where the protagonist experiences the aura consisted of alternating shots with
symmetric and asymmetric
framing in order to evoke a sense of unbalance and a "loss of
volition". In order to give the film a feeling of "unreality, alienation, where everything might be happening in a slightly out-of-kilter dimension", the film was converted to a
digital intermediate, where the effect was achieved, and then converted back to
film. The film's original cut had a runtime of three hours. The editing process took nine months. According to Bielinsky, "nothing essential" was cut, they only shortened the scenes already present in order to get to its final runtime. ==Release==