The Secret in Their Eyes

When it comes to predicting Oscar winners, I tend to go more by what I expect the Academy to do rather than which film/actor/director actually deserves the award. One of the categories I always seem to get wrong is the Best Picture in a Foreign Language as very few of them make it to the cinemas in the UK and it seems to take ages for them to appear on DVD/BD. I saw A Prophet at the cinema and then on BD, considering it the best non-English film I had seen and so expected that to walk away with the Oscar because it is such a great film. However, at that time, I hadn't seen Michael Haneke's White Ribbon or Juan José Campanella's The Secret in Their Eyes, which was the winner in that category.

Using a twin narrative and cutting from the present day to the 1970s, The Secret in Their Eyes follows a recently retired deputy counsellor and high-ranking detective, Benjamín Esposito, who is looking back on his life and wants to write a novel but can't get past five lines before succumbing to writer's block. Returning to Buenos Aires after what seems like a long absence to see his former boss, Irene Menéndez Hastings, with an idea to write something personal that has been bugging him for decades: a murder case in which a newly married woman was brutally raped and killed.

Cutting back to the 1970s, you see how Esposito first meets Hastings as she is brought in as the court secretary for Court 42 following some time when she studied at Cornell University. Esposito and his colleague and friend, Pablo Sandoval, have a strange way of working which isn't the most neat and tidy and does tend to bend the rules and legality. Sandoval has an interesting way of avoiding work which is to answer the phone in the office with a completely fictitious and incorrect greeting, pretending the other person has found the riot squad, a florist or even the sperm bank. The two get on very well even though Sandoval can be a hopeless drunk who needs to be bailed out by Esposito because just about all of his pay packet goes on whiskey. It is abundantly clear that Sandoval has feelings for Irene but can't or won't do anything about them.

When the call comes in about a murder, Sandoval does everything he can to avoid the case, insisting that it is another counsellor's turn and that it's really not his job. However, he is assigned to the case and told to get to the location before the crime scene becomes a wake and finds a beautiful woman, Liliana Coloto, in a hideous pose on the floor showing signs of a severe beating. Her husband, Ricardo Morales, is utterly grief stricken and Sandoval says that he has never seen such love for another person in someone's eyes before. Going through some of Morales' photo albums, he notices that there are several photos with one man staring at Liliana in every photo rather than looking at the lens like everybody else. Luckily, Morales has arranged the photos meticulously with paper on top of each one of which the outlines of the people have been drawn and each assigned a number with their names listed on the opposite page and the man, Isidoro Gómez, is in several photos with the same look in his eyes.


Although there is no hard evidence, there is something about the way that Gómez is always looking at Liliana that gives Esposito a gut feeling that Gómez is the murderer and they go to his flat only to find that he has just moved out and not left a forwarding address despite being owed a month's wage by his employer. It seems that everywhere they look for Gómez turns out to be a dead-end as he appears to be one step ahead of the police.

Although I always try to approach films with an open mind and no preconceptions, I must admit that I watched The Secret in Their Eyes expecting a great piece of filmmaking as, if the Academy have judged it to be a better film than A Prophet or White Ribbon, then it must be very special indeed despite the Academy's reputation for making rather peculiar decisions when it comes to the Oscars. I knew absolutely nothing about the plot, cast or filmmakers so, aside from expecting a great film, was able to watch this with a clean slate. It wasn't long before I realised I was watching something very special indeed as the acting and make up to change people's appearances and make them fit the different time periods so they appear either 30-odd years older or younger depending on where you are in the story. There is one astonishing shot just before the hour mark which begins miles away from a football stadium, approaching the venue, zooming right down into the game and then up into Esposito's face. I had heard about this shot but it is something that really needs to be seen to be believed.


This film works as a gripping crime thriller and as a meditative and romantic drama on the pitfalls of old age and whether it is wise to look back to what could have been or just get on with things in the present day, refusing to regret things that might have been. The entire cast is superb from Soledad Villamil, who plays Irene, to Ricardo Darín's brilliant capturing of Esposito and Guillermo Francella, whose Sandoval is both a comical and doomed character whose drinking is frequently out of hand but comes up with the most brilliant lines and mannerisms.

Based on a novel by Eduardo Sacheri and written for the screen by him and Juan José Campanella, this is an extremely well constructed film that keeps you involved from first minute to last thanks to the direction by Campanella (who also edited the film) and the terrific cinematography by Félix Monti. As I've said, I was expecting something special and this met and surpassed everything I expected and hoped for and, though I still think A Prophet is an exceptional film, this is in every way its equal.

The Disc

Extra Features
When the disc loads up, there are a few trailers (I Am Love, Anything for Her and Lebanon) that you can either watch or skip through and then, immediately before the main menu appears, you are informed that you can put the disc in your computer to create a digital copy and access further extra features, competitions and other material via the Metrodome website (which requires registration).

Cast & Crew Interviews (4:50) is, as the title suggests, a series of interviews with people from the actors Ricardo Darín, Soledad Villamil, Guillermo Francella and Pablo Rago and then finally Juan José Campanella. None of them are afforded a great deal of time so you only get very brief interviews with each which tend to be quite superficial and assumed knowledge of Campanella's previous films and his collaborations with these actors.

Behind the Scenes (4:13) is, like the interviews, far from the comprehensive and in-depth look I would have hoped for and is fairly perfunctory with clips from the film and interviews with members of the cast and crew rather than an exploration of how and why people were cast, how certain shots were achieved and a look into the make-up process.

There is also a trailer.


The Picture
It is a shame that the UK doesn't have a Blu-ray release but the image quality on this DVD is much better than I was expecting with very little in the way of banding, moiré or aliasing and presents the picture with solid and consistent colours and very good contrast levels.

It isn't the most visually demanding film you will ever see but the attention to detail as it moves from one era to another is extraordinary with excellent costumes, make-up and other elements of the mise en scène which combine to make the film an immersive experience.

The Secret in Their Eyes is very well shot by a director who clearly works at a very high level and there are some terrific shots, none better than when the camera approaches a football stadium, zooms in to the action on the field and then up to a character's face, settling in the crowd.

The Sound
As this is predominantly dialogue dominated with very few scenes that bring the rear surrounds into play, there is little to choose between the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound 2.0 stereo. I sampled the two before settling on the 5.1, which I found to be slightly better balanced and clearer than the stereo, also doing a better job with the score.

Speaking of which, the music composed by Federico Jusid and Emilio Kauderer is an extremely tender and evocative score that manages to underscore both the horror of the crime and the romance which is forever bubbling under the surface.

The burnt-in subtitles are clear and easy to read and generally free from typographical and grammatical errors although, right at the very beginning, there is one instance where someone forgot to press the space bar so you end up with "anothercase" but this is the only error in the whole film.


Final Thoughts
Considering I went into this with high expectations, I was almost setting myself up for a fall and to be disappointed when the end credits rolled that it was surprising just how well this lived up to and, in some ways surpassed my expectations as it is a masterful piece of filmmaking and one that will stand up to repeated viewings. Having now seen the three main contenders for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, I am not as concerned as I was that A Prophet was astonishingly overlooked as The Secret in Their Eyes is practically its equal and as deserving of the Academy's praise as any other nominated film that year.

It is a shame that the disc isn't replete with extra features that really delve into the filmmaking process but the AV quality is really good for a DVD and if you like foreign cinema and don't mind subtitles (why should you, anyway?) then this is practically a must see film although perhaps a rental is the way to go before splashing the cash and adding it to your DVD collection.