The Secret in their Eyes

More than just a crime story, The Secret in their Eyes is a blend of drama, whodunit, romance-genre that intersects the character-driven, plot-driven film and also functions as an allegory of how Argentina continues to wrestle with its own past…

A passion can never really be hidden. It needs to find its release.

There’s no real secret here between Benjamin and Irene. Unspoken love, perhaps –but the truth permeates them both. The title is something of a red-herring. The electrically-charged, ever-present tension that’s laced with regret is what epitomises this relationship. It is a well-worn jumper. So, there’s no secret in their eyes – let’s be candid.

Multi-layered thriller The Secret in their Eyes by Juan Jose Campanella, an Argentinean writer-director-editor (I need a cuppa and a lie-down just writing that line-up) won the Academy Award for best foreign-language picture. It connects the personal lives of a state prosecution investigator (Benjamin Esposito) and a judge (Irene), with a manhunt spanning twenty-five years, following a brutal rape and murder in 1974 and set in 1999, Buenos Aires.

Benjamin, a recently retired criminal court investigator (played by popular Argentinean actor, Ricardo Darin) decides to write a novel based on this unresolved case that still haunts him and shares this with Irene, a beautiful judge and former colleague he’s secretly been in love with for years (played by Soledad Villamil). The ulterior motive for writing this novel is to reignite the close partnership Esposito enjoyed with Irene.

We oscillate between past and present as the film tells us the story of this brutal rape-murder of a striking twenty-three year old woman and Esposito’s attempt to solve the case. The victim’s husband, Ricardo Morales (Pablo Rago) is a young bank employee whose devotion and singular love for his wife further exacerbates Esposito’s personal obsession with his newly appointed superior –something his quirky partner Sandoval (comedic actor Guillermo Francella) has noted.

We learn early on that Esposito is a good man, who is willing to stand up for the rights of two poor immigrants his corrupt boss pins the rape on. This same decency has kept him from getting close to Irene who has been engaged ever since they met. As a consequence, his feelings have remained sheltered. Esposito must often rescue Sandoval from drunken nights out as he ‘chews the fat’ at his local and eventually he and Esposito manage to identify and track down their suspect –Gomez (Javier Godino).

The confession is somewhat unorthodox. Before long Gomez is at large again, prematurely released, becoming an agent for the secret police, causing Esposito to fear for his life and escape the country, leaving Irene behind, unable to profess his love.

Esposito is driven to unearth the killer’s fate and that of the victim’s husband in order to finish his novel and complete his story. A passion can never be hidden.

So much more than just a crime story, this blend of drama, whodunit, romance-genre is what is particularly interesting. The film intersects the character-driven, plot-driven film and also functions as an allegory of how Argentina continues to wrestle with its own past.

The casting is excellent, the characters well-rounded; thematically-rich, the script is well-paced, the suspense palpable, the surprises unnerving and Darin’s screen-presence draws you right in. The intriguing fusion of blue-eyes on an Argentinean is striking.

How refreshing to watch characters that are so authentic, so genuine, it helps you see anew, the messy-normality of real relationships, the spoken and unspoken realities and how both impact on how you engage with each another. No artificiality here. Nice one, Campanella.

Nice touch: The typewriter Esposito used to write his novel, had a malfunctioning lowercase ‘a’. Only with the inclusion of subtitles wAs this pArticulAr perculiArity AbundAntly AppreciAted.

By Catherine Pittams, 26 April 2010