Film: The Secret In Their Eyes
Release date: 10th January 2011
Certificate: 18
Running time: 127 mins
Director: Juan Jose Campanella
Starring: Soledad Villamil, Ricardo Darin, Carla Quevedo, Pablo Rago, Javier Godino
Genre: Crime/Drama/Mystery/Romance
Studio: Metrodome
Format: DVD
Country: Argentina/Spain
With A Prophet and The White Ribbon going head to head in the Best Foreign Language category, it was hard to predict the winner at 2010's Oscars, but, surprisingly for many, The Secret In Their Eyes came through to trump these much hyped frontrunners.
The film’s focus is Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darin), a retired Federal Justice Agent, who finds himself constantly coming back to a case from 1974 that endlessly plagued him and his career.
In an attempt to rid himself of his demons, he decides to write a novel about the case file, otherwise known as the Morales Case - the rape and murder of a beautiful 23-year-old school teacher.
Meeting his old department chief and love interest, Irene Menendez Hastings (Solidad Villami), we are gradually pulled into the world of these characters, and the majority of the film’s remainder is reverted to a flashback of 1974, as we witness the Morales case unfold, and evidence and ideas are rustled back up in the present day (1999)…
The unravelling of the case occurs at a near perfect pace, with exactly the right amount of focus on solid facts, and the avoidance of an over complicated spiel of evidence and red herrings. This is not a Sherlock Holmes tale; it is a realistic and, at times, disturbing account of real life crime, and the attempts of the solving of this crime and achieving justice in a Fascist state.
Surprisingly, the case is solved by the midway point, with an incredibly impressive tracking shot taking place from a bird’s eye view of a football stadium, the camera then swooping down on the football game taking place and weaving in through the crowd then settling upon our protagonists and their hunt for the accused man. Things take a turn for the worse, despite the capturing of the killer, and events go off at full pelt concluding with an expertly handled finale, which manages to emote a well of disgust and sympathy simultaneously in the viewer.
It is safe to say that Campanella has such a tight hold on his film and its narrative that everything goes at such a clockwork pace, the switches in time periods effortlessly convincing, and adding further story and personality to the characters.
The love story of the two central leads is interwoven into the harrowing murder case superbly. Darin and Villamil gather up and bottle such chemistry and longing for one another’s characters that it is hard to think of another on screen will-they-won’t-they couple who managed it quite so successfully. In credit to the actors, the central hook of this film is the characters and the human heart that lies at the centre of the narrative. You can detect the subtle yet sudden change of mind of Esposito once he sees the crime scene, a case he bemoands and doesn’t want to take on initially, until he sees the body, and indebts himself to finding the man who could commit such a crime.
Of particular note, the cinematography is gorgeous in its lighting, and the deep browns and yellows manage to add an almost antique effect to what the viewer witnesses throughout.
The Secret In Their Eyes is a diamond in the rough - a beautiful film that rose to prominence at a time of cash-ins and sequels. We can only hope it holds out a life span of decades to come, with its mixing pot of romance, horror, thrill and intrigue. JCH
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