The Aerial, first and foremost, is a silent movie. It came out in 2007 but looks like the classic sci-fi films of cinema's infancy, like Metropolis or A Trip to the Moon. It depicts a nameless city where the populace has lost the ability to speak, instead communicating in subtitles that appear in the air around them. The only person with a voice is the mysterious television host La Voz.

The plot follows a young girl named Ana and her family as they encounter a conspiracy to use La Voz's voice as a deadly weapon and fight to stop it using her young son, who inherited her ability to speak. "They can take our voice, but they can't take our words," Ana's father says. That becomes the thesis statement of the entire work.

The joy in The Aerial is how it revives the experimental form that film took when it was brand new. Practical effects are combined with film cutouts and exposures to create a movie where every shot feels new and revolutionary. It comes as no surprise that the director, Esteban Sapir, is primarily a cinematographer. He throws every filmmaking trick that exists at The Aerial, all without relying on CGI to create something after the fact.