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The Secret in Their Eyes
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Wikipedia article
{{Infobox film
| name = The Secret in Their Eyes
| image = Cartel-nuevo-de-el-secreto-de-sus-ojos.jpg
| caption = Argentine theatrical release poster
| native_name =
| director = Juan Jos Campanella
| producer =
| writer =
| based_on =
| starring =
| music =
| cinematography = Flix Monti
| editing = Juan Jos Campanella
| production_companies =
| distributor =
| released =
| runtime = 129 minutes
| country = Argentina
| language = Spanish
| budget = $2 million
| gross = $34 million
}}
'The Secret in Their Eyes' is a 2009 Argentinian crime drama film directed, co-written, produced and edited by Juan Jos Campanella, based on the novel 'La pregunta de sus ojos' ('The Question in Their Eyes') by Eduardo Sacheri, who also co-wrote the screenplay. The film is a joint production of Argentine and Spanish companies.
Using a nonlinear narrative, the film depicts a judiciary employee and his boss, a law clerk, in 1974, played by Ricardo Darn and Soledad Villamil, respectively, as they investigate a rape and murder case, while also following the characters 25 years later reminiscing over the case and unearthing the buried romance between them.
The film received awards in both Hollywood and Spain, notably the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards, making Argentina, with 1985's 'The Official Story', the first country in Latin America to win it twice. Three weeks before, it had received the Spanish equivalent with the Goya Award for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film. At the time of its release, it became the second highest-grossing film in Argentine history, surpassed only by 1975's 'Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf'.
In 2016, 'The Secret in Their Eyes' was ranked No. 91 by international critics for the BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century.
Plot
In June 1974, judiciary agent Benjamin Espsito investigates the rape and murder of Liliana Colotto de Morales. Espsito promises her husband, Ricardo, he will find the killer and give him a life sentence. Espsito is helped by his alcoholic partner Pablo Sandval and the new department chief Irene Menndez-Hastings. Romano, Espsito's rival, accuses two immigrant workers of the murder, which angers Espsito upon discovering that both of them were tortured to obtain a confession.
Espsito finds a lead while looking at old photos of Liliana, which Ricardo gave him: many of them featured a man, identified as Isidoro Gmez, staring at her suspiciously. Espsito and Sandval sneak into Gmez's mother's house in Chivilcoy. During the break-in, they find some letters from Gmez to his mother. Sandval steals them and Espsito finds out after returning to Buenos Aires. Their "visit" only causes them trouble with their higher-ups, and they are unable to find any evidence in the letters. Gmez is still on the loose due to a careless phone call from Ricardo to Gmez's mother, in a desperate quest for his wife's killer. Ultimately, the case is closed.
In 1975, Espsito finds Ricardo in a train station in Retiro and discovers that he was trying to find Gmez in multiple stations. Espsito convinces Menndez to reopen the investigation. Meanwhile, while getting drunk in a bar, Sandval makes a discovery: an acquaintance of his identifies several names on the letters seemingly without any connection as footballers of Racing Football Club. After identifying him as a Racing fan, Espsito and Sandval attend a game between Racing and Huracn, in hopes of finding Gmez.
While keeping an eye on the game's attendees in Huracn's stadium, Espsito and Sandval locate Gmez among the crowd, but a sudden goal causes a hubbub and allows Gmez to flee. A chase ensues and Gmez is caught by the stadium's security guards as he invades the pitch. Espsito and Menndez then grill him illegally, and Menndez makes Gmez confess by calling him physically weak, and attacking his masculinity. Gmez is tried and sentenced, but Romano bails him out one month later in order to get revenge on Espsito and hires him as a hitman for the right-wing faction of the Peronist Party. Espsito and Menndez try to reverse it but are stopped by Romano's intervention. Espsito informs Morales that his wife's killer will never go to prison.
Weeks later, Sandval gets in a bar fight, causing Espsito to take him to his flat and fetch his wife. They find the door pried open, his pictures flipped over and Sandval shot dead in his room. Espsito soon concludes that Gmez/Romano sent assassins after him, but Sandval impersonated him to protect his friend. Fearing for his life, Espsito goes into hiding for 10 years in Jujuy Province with Menndez's cousins. Espsito returns to Buenos Aires in 1985 to find Gmez missing and Menndez married with two children.
In 1999, Espsito tries to make sense out of the case and visits Ricardo, who moved in 1975 to an isolated cottage in a rural area of the Buenos Aires Province. Ricardo loses control when Espsito asks him how he coped with his wife's death and the unfair end of the investigation since Gmez was never seen again after becoming part of Isabel Perns security detail. Ricardo tells Espsito that he kidnapped and murdered Gmez years earlier, and Espsito leaves. Espsito leaves, but remembering Ricardo not wanting an easy death for Gmez decades ago, sneaks back to Ricardos house, where he finds Ricardo giving food to Gmez, whom Ricardo kept imprisoned for 25 years without talking to him. Gmez begs Espsito for human contact. Ricardo tells Espsito he promised him "a life sentence" as he staggers out.
Back in Buenos Aires, Espsito visits Sandval's grave for the first time. He then goes to Irene's office, ready to confess his love to her, something she was always expecting. Smiling, she tells him to close the door.
Cast
* Ricardo Darn as Benjamn Espsito, a judiciary employee in charge of solving the rape and murder of Liliana Coloto
* Soledad Villamil as Irene Menndez Hastings, a judge and Espsito's superior, who helps him with his investigation
* Pablo Rago as Ricardo Morales, Lliliana Coloto's grieving widower
* Javier Godino as Isidoro Gmez
* Guillermo Francella as Pablo Sandoval, Espsito's alcoholic friend and assistant
* as Judge Fortuna
* Mariano Argento as Romano
* as Inspector Bez
* Carla Quevedo as Liliana Coloto
Historical and political context
The setting of the film ties its characters to the political situation in Argentina in two different time periods: 1975 and 1999. The main events transpire in 1975, a year before the start of Argentina's last civil-military dictatorship (19761983); the final year of the presidency of Isabel Pern saw great political turmoil, with both leftist violence and state-sponsored terrorist organization, especially at the hands of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (usually known as Triple A or AAA), a far-right death squad founded in 1973 and particularly active under Isabel Pern's rule (19741976). A military coup in 1976 triggered the so-called "Dirty War", which is foreshadowed in the character of Isidoro Gomez and his protection by the government due to his work helping that administration and its judicial system to find (and later kill) left-wing activists and militants or guerrilla members. The dictatorship's 'National Reorganization Process' was a period of more than seven years (19761983) marred by widespread human rights violations.CONADEP, Nunca Ms Report, Chapter II, Section One:'Advertencia', [http://www.desaparecidos.org/arg/conadep/nuncamas/] [https://www.hmh.org/la_Genocide_Argentina.shtml Atrocities in Argentina (19761983)] Holocaust Museum Houston The state-sponsored terrorism of the military 'Junta' created a climate of violence whose victims were in the thousands and included left-wing activists and militants, intellectuals and artists, trade unionists, high school and college/university students and journalists, as well as Marxists, Peronist guerrillas or alleged sympathizers of both.
It is estimated that some 10,000 of the disappeared were guerrillas of the Montoneros (MPM), the oldest guerrilla organization, which began to operate in 1970, and the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP).[http://www.elmundo.es/papel/hemeroteca/1995/05/04/mundo/40472.html El ex lder de los Montoneros entona un mea culpa parcial de su pasado], 'El Mundo', 4 May 1995 Although in the period there was leftist violence involved, mostly by Montoneros, most of the victims were unarmed non-combatants, and the guerrillas were exterminated by 1979, while the dictatorship carried out its crimes until the exit from power.[https://web.archive.org/web/20071016212547/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,947405,00.html "Argentina: In Search of the Disappeared"] 'Time Magazine' - Amnesty International reported in 1979 that 15,000 disappeared had been abducted, tortured and possibly killed. After the defeat in the Falklands War, the Junta called for elections in 1983. The National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons originally estimated that around 13,000 individuals were 'disappeared'.[http://edant.clarin.com/diario/2003/10/06/p-00801.htm Una duda histrica: no se sabe cuntos son los desaparecidos. Clarin.com. 06/10/2003.] Present estimates for the number of people who were killed or disappeared range from 9,089 to over 30,000;[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/02/obituary-raul-alfonsin Obituary] 'The Guardian', Thursday 2 April 2009Daniels, Alfonso. (2008-05-17) [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3673470/Argentinas-dirty-war-the-museum-of-horrors.html "Argentina's dirty war: the museum of horrors".] 'Telegraph'. Retrieved on 6 August 2010. The military themselves reported killing 22,000 people in a 1978 communication to Chilean Intelligence,[https://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/el-ejercito-admitio-22000-crimenes-nid791532 The Army admitted 22,000 crimes, by Hugo Alconada Mon] 03-24-2006, 'La Nacin' and the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, which are the most important Human-Rights Organisations in Argentina, have always jointly maintained that the number of disappeared is unequivocally 30,000.[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/28/mothers-plaza-de-mayo-argentina-anniversary 40 years later, the mothers of Argentinas 'disappeared' refuse to be silent, by Uki Goi] 4-28-2017, 'The Guardian'
Since 1983 Argentina has maintained democracy as its ruling system: in that year Ral Alfonsn was elected president and soon spoke out against the Argentinian junta's use of torture and death squads who spirited away "the disappeared" and killed them, hiding their bodies in unknown locations.[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/raul-alfonsin-politician-who-led-argentina-out-of-the-dark-years-of-the-military-junta-1661059.html Raul Alfonsin: Politician who led Argentina out of the dark years of the military junta] 4-2-2009, 'The Independent' In office, Alfonsn set about punishing police and troops who were responsible for unknown thousands of deaths in the so-called "dirty war". By 1985 the government had promoted the Trial of the Juntas, which prosecuted and condemned the men who were at the top of the military hierarchies during the country's last dictatorship, stopping short of prosecuting the other militars and civilians who were also responsible for the period's crimes.
The second period portrayed is 1999, during the last days of Carlos Menem's administration. During this time, the national laws known as the "Full stop" law ("Ley de Punto Final") and Due Obedience sanctioned during the 1980s were still in effect. These legal elements, popularly known as "the amnesty laws", had effectively blocked the investigation of thousands of cases of human rights abuses committed during the time of the country's last dictatorship. This period of Argentina's history is shown to stress the predicament in which the character of Ricardo Morales lived, since the impunity that criminals and human rights abusers like Gmez enjoyed at the time prevented Morales to bring the former to justice: the penal system would have convicted Morales for his past actions. At the same time, many former torturers and murderers of the dictatorship who had previously been friends or partners of Gmez were free at the time, and would have likely taken revenge on Morales. This fact further explains why Morales isolated and locked himself up with Gmez for so many years.
In 2003 the political climate changed, and during President Nestor Kirchner's administration, the Full Stop and Due Obedience laws, along with the executive pardons, were declared null and void, first by the Congress and then by the Supreme Court. These changes, promoted by the government in 2005,[https://www.hrw.org/news/2005/06/14/argentina-amnesty-laws-struck-down Argentina: Amnesty Laws Struck Down] 14 June 2005 - Human Rights Watch enabled the judicial power to prosecute and trial all the orchestrators of State-sponsored terrorism, also including politically motivated criminal acts committed between 1975 and 1983. The crimes of that period are still being judged as of 2022.[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/carla-marcantonio/secret-in-their-eyes-the-_b_8855680.html Secret in Their Eyes: The Gashes of History, by Carla Marcantonio] 12 Dec 2015 - 'Huffington Post'[https://www.telam.com.ar/notas/202005/470334-continuan-por-medios-electronicos-dos-juicios-de-lesa-humanidad.html Two trials of crimes against humanity continue electronically] 05-31-2020, Telam [https://www.telam.com.ar/tags/732-juicios-por-delitos-de-lesa-humanidad/noticias All news (tag) of Trials for crimes against humanity] Telam
Production
For this joint Argentine/Spanish production, Campanella returned from the United States, where he had directed episodes of the television series 'House' and 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit', to film 'The Secret in Their Eyes'. It marked his fourth collaboration with actor-friend Ricardo Darn, who had previously starred in all three of Campanella's Argentine-produced films in the lead role. Frequent collaborator Eduardo Blanco, however, is not featured in the movie; the part of Darn's character's friend is played instead by comedian Guillermo Francella.
In addition to presenting the appropriate ambiance for Argentina in the mid-1970s, it features a formidable technical achievement in creating a continuous five-minute-long shot (designed by visual effects supervisor Rodrigo S. Tomasso), that encompasses an entire stadium during a live football match. From a standard aerial overview we approach the stadium, dive in, cross the field between the players mid-match and find the protagonist in the crowd, then take a circular move around him and follow him as he shuffles through the stands until he finds the suspect, continuing with a feverish stop-and-go chase on foot through the murky rooms and corridors beneath the stands, finally ending under the lights in the middle of the pitch. The scene was filmed in the stadium of football club Huracn, and took three months of pre-production, three days of shooting and nine months of post-production. Two hundred extras took part in the shooting, and visual effects created a fully packed stadium with nearly fifty thousand fans.
Reception
'The Secret in Their Eyes' received very positive reviews from critics, not only in Argentina, but also abroad. It holds a 89% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 140 reviews, and an average rating of 7.72/10. The website's critical consensus is: "Unpredictable and rich with symbolism, this Argentine murder mystery lives up to its Oscar with an engrossing plot, Juan Jose Campanella's assured direction, and mesmerizing performances from its cast." On the website Metacritic it holds a score of 80 out of 100, based on 36 critical reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Remake
In 2015, American filmmaker Billy Ray wrote and directed a remake of 'The Secret in Their Eyes', under the same title. The remake starred Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Dean Norris, Michael Kelly, and Alfred Molina. The film was released by STXfilms on 20 November 2015. It received mixed reception from critics, who praised its performances but compared it unfavorably to the original.
See also
* List of Argentine films of 2009
* List of Spanish films of 2009
References
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