The Secret in Their Eyes

The Secret in Their Eyes

The Secret In Their Eyes is a haunting Argentine drama/thriller which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film of 2009.  The protagonist, Benjamin Esposito, is an investigator for one of the regions of the District Attorney’s office in Buenos Aires.  His closest friend is a coworker named Sandoval who is a drunk who cannot get his life together, but also provides some of the funniest moments in the film.  Into their lives comes Irene, their new supervisor who Benjamin falls in love with. The film cleverly takes place in two time periods.  It opens and closes around the year 2000 but probably 70% of the action takes place between 1974 and 1976 when a rape and murder of an innocent woman ends up changing the lives of all the main characters.  

Unlike most films that rely on a flashback structure, The Secret in Their Eyes cuts between the two time frames throughout to show how certain scenes that occurred in the past affect the present, primarily scenes between Benjamin and Irene.  The opening scene of the film, which is shot as a montage, in which a man is leaving on a train introduces this structure by turning out to be the final scene of the 1970s section of the film.

In the scenes set around 2000, Benjamin is writing a novel based on the events of the past and there is the suggestion within the film that some of these events, especially the train scene, might be a little skewed by his memories of them since they only reflect his point of view.

I expected the film to be more politically themed as a lot of foreign films released in the U.S. are, but while there is a thematic background (the D.A. does let Gomez out to get even with Benjamin’s earlier flouting of his authority-which has some political context of its time) the focus is more on the long term effect that it has on Benjamin, and to a lesser extent, on the other characters.

Benjamin is not the type of protagonist one would rarelt see in an American film.  He is middle aged in the beginning, and has average looks at best.  At the end of the film he is probably in his late 60s.  Ricardo Darín plays him as an intelligent and decent man who is in love with the far more attractive Irene but does not feel he is worthy of her.  He is much older than she is and not as well educated and she is his direct supervisor.

 

There are several scenes in this fantastic film that stuck with me.  

I knew when Benjamin saw the picture of Gomez staring at the victim he would be the real killer.  The fact that Gomez goes to such lengths to hide from them make it clear as well.  Therefore again the film is not about the hunt for or the attempt to identify the killer but how these events affect its characters, which for me was completely unpredictable.

The scene at the soccer stadium in which they capture Gomez is shot with handheld cameras and seem to be a single take as the cops find Gomez and it switches points of view first from Sandoval’s to Gomez’ as he is revealed to be hiding in a bathroom and then runs down onto the field.  This is one of the only scenes to even partially adopt Sandoval’s point of view but it works because it was his idea to look for him at soccer games.

The interrogation scene in which Irene baits Gomez by decrying every bit of his masculinity is great.  But what allows it to work as well as it does is the preceding scene in which Irene shoots down Benjamin’s intended good-cop bad cop routine.  She knows that as an attractive woman she can reach him on a guttural level.  It is the only scene she gets like this but as all the actors do throughout the film, she plays it very real.  Irene learns something about herself in this scene as she is confronting a criminal directly for the first time.  When Gomez attacks her both Benjamin and Irene show impulsively show their love for each other.  Benjamin gets very protective and Irene clutches onto him.  Instead of thriller music the romantic piano theme is played.

The scene in the elevator is realistically suspenseful.  Right after being told they are powerless to take action again Gomez (who actually has been protecting the president) Benjamin and Irene are in the elevator and Gomez, looking much more chic than before, suddenly enters. Irene looks down and Benjamin is trying to stare him down, especially since Irene is standing between them until Gomez pulls the gun out but does not point it at them.  Suddenly the dynamic completely changes as the viewer realizes they are trapped in the elevator with an armed killer.  It is clear once the door opens they will wait for him to leave since they are too scared but Gomez leaves but then turns around and gives them a hard look, which they feel but do not see since they are still looking down.  The look is especially chilling since the camera is from the side of the door into the car, meaning that we see the look through the mirror on one side of the frame.  The director sees no need to shove it down our throats with a melodramatic close-up.  It also implies that he will be coming for them.

The following sequence, in which Irene, who in the earlier sections is engaged to an off-screen boyfriend and in the later ones, is married with kids, is sad.  She offers Benjamin a date which is his chance to declare his love for her and prevent her from getting married.  She has gotten involved with this other man it seems because Benjamin has never had the courage to express his feelings for her.  We know this date will probably not take place, since they are not together in 2000, but cannot help but hope that it does.  It is interrupted by the sacrificial death of Sandoval (he pretends to be Benjamin when Gomez sends some goons to assasinate him).  Immediately afterwards is the train sequence when Benjamin leaves to go into hiding and almost but not quite kisses Irene goodbye.  Through the train window as it pulls away is the first time they seem unguarded with their emotions for each other.

The husband, when confronted by Benjamin the first time in 2000, claims he is over the trama of the loss of his wife and the fact that Gomez has gone free.  On the surface he seems to be at peace with it but Benjamin sees that he has never remarried and is living in a remote area. Benjamin cannot quite accept that the could get over it when earlier the husband was waiting in train stations for a year hoping to catch sight of Gomez.   What he is really trying to do it is get Benjamin away from him or at least onto another topic so he does not draw the truth from him. Eventually when he claims to have shot Gomez it provides a little satisfaction but does not feel quite right.  It seemed a little too clean for the this complex film.  

I liked that Benjamin deduced that it was not right afterward and sought it out rather than forcing a confession from the husband.  The montage is clever edited.  It makes Benjamin a more realistic character since people, especially men, often come to truths of things reflecting after a conversation or an event rather than during it and more pro active.

 

When the truth is revealed, that the husband has been holding Gomez in a cage in his barn for the past 25 years it is shocking.  The husband has not been physically torturing him, in fact when he see Gomez, the husband is bringing him a meal.  Gomez has been completely isolated and his torture has been emotional since he has been missing the one thing all humans desperately need, interaction. Gomez is weak and his voice is dry from disuse and Benjamin is astounded but the film does not say if he told the authorities what the husband was doing.  The viewer is forced to contemplate it for him or herself.

I think it is tragic that the husband gave up his life to punish this killer.  I wonder if his wife would have wanted him to possibly revel in his death but at least the husband kept to his values, since earlier he had said he was against the death penalty.  However I think if I were Benjamin I would be inclined to leave the matter as it is.  Gomez is a sick man and would do no good in the world if free.  

The film surprised me quite a bit by ending on an uplifting note.  I expected at best a bittersweet ending but Benjamin has, as I imagine most of us would, a profound reaction and I think in part seeing that the husband has sacrificed any companionship for the rest of his life so he can punish Gomez.  Benjamin decides he has wasted enough of his life (even though he may only have 10 or 15 years left of his life) and, without saying it out loud, declares his love for Irene who immediately indicates, also without saying it out loud, that she will leave her husband for him.  Her reaction is one of relief and the door closes.

I think the film is a total triumph and created intelligent characters and took them to interesting places.  The actors were fantastic, particularly Ricardo Darín as Benjamin, Soledad Villamil as Irene and Javier Godino as Gomez had a sick menace that was very believeable.  The film expertly combines drama, romance and even workplace comedy into a very rewarding experience.  I strongly recommend it. ****