THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES (2009)
A retired legal counsellor writes a novel hoping to find closure for one of his past unresolved homicide cases and for his unreciprocated love with his superior... both of which still haunt him decades later.
Although he doesn’t yet know it, Ricardo Morales (Pablo Rago) has just had breakfast with his wife for the final time. She’s taken from him; her life extinguished by an unknown assailant. Political turmoil and social upheaval ensure that justice will not only never be done, but will be intentionally overturned; the world’s jackals thrive in 1975 Argentina, only one year before dictatorship will bring the country to some of its darkest years.
Benjamín Espósito (Ricardo Darín) is the first judicial employee at the crime scene. He’s unaware that his life’s about to change forever: Liliana Coloto (Carla Quevedo), only 23 years old, has been savagely raped and beaten to death. Although this has been Espósito’s line of work for years, it’s evident that he’s never faced this kind of brutality—but that is all about to change.
After he retires, and 25 years after the event in question, Espósito is still haunted by the case. Images of the crime scene flicker in his mind. He tries his best to record the events accurately, detailing them in a novel he is working on to while away his time. But he still wakes up in the middle of the night, panicked by the memory of a tragedy he could not prevent, an injustice he could not rectify. In the pitch black, he reaches out and writes on a piece of paper: ‘TEMO’ (I fear).
As such, it becomes clear very early on in the story that memory is a prominent theme. Indeed, there’s a Proustian quality to the film: the hissing of a kettle transports Esposito back 25 years, and everything soon becomes a blur. In this respect, it is a film that stylistically has a lot in common with Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America (1984). Both incorporate a non-linear story structure to comment on the ineffable nature of memory, as well as the fear of forgetting: “I don’t know if it’s a memory or a memory of a memory I’m left with.”
The people who can now only exist in our memory are very different from the people we once knew. They have softer edges and brighter smiles; the dark parts of humanity disappear under the white light of recollection. But this is not a good thing—it’s frightening. We risk losing the truth of the person we once loved. Morales refuses to forget even an infinitesimal part of his beloved wife, but it’s not so simply done: “The worst part is I’m starting to forget. I have to constantly make myself remember her. Every day.”
The Secret in Their Eyes / El secreto de sus ojos is a film about the death of the soul, about what people lose in their fight against the evils of the world. At an early point in the story, Esposito remarks on how much is revealed by a person’s pupils: “The eyes… they speak.” Though our outer demeanour, our words, or our actions may often run contrary to what we truly want, our eyes serve as the doorway to the soul; they do not lie. They cannot conceal. What kind of chameleon could truly veil their innermost wishes? Perhaps the person whose soul has well and truly died, someone who has practically stopped being a person altogether—an individual who has become their own vengeance.
Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote: “He who fights with monsters should take care lest he himself become a monster. And if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into thee.” It could quite effectively serve as the thesis for Juan José Campanella’s Academy Award-winning tale of revenge. Espósito and Morales are both desperate for justice to be done, often taking extreme measures to ensure their success. Morales lurks in train stations for over a year, like a hawk, with his eyes scanning the platforms to find the face of his wife’s killer. Espósito breaks police protocol and laws of due process to find their man.
As they both wade deeper into their obsessions, justice becomes more and more of an elusive entity. Perhaps equity isn’t real at all, and they are chasing after a completely illusory concept, a figment of our collective imagination. After all, everyone in the justice department appears to consider the word itself a laughable conceit. As one of Espósito’s colleagues informs him bluntly: “Justice is nothing but an island. This is the real world.”
The story posits an intriguing question: what do we even consider to be justice? If Liliana’s killer were sentenced to death, would that constitute justice? Despite the same result, it would not amount to a fair exchange of pain and suffering. When Espósito asks Morales if he would want the killer executed, as some means of retribution, Morales turns to him with a seething look in his eye: “Retribution? Will they rape him and beat him to death? No, they’ll give him an injection, and he’ll take a nap.”
The story appears to draw a concerning parallel between justice and violence, suggesting our society often conflates the two. This is seen most obviously when a police officer beats two innocent men so brutally that they confess to a crime they did not commit. Morales does not believe in the death penalty, believing the spiritual torment of a life sentence in prison is the only worthwhile exchange: “Let him grow old—live a life full of nothing.”
The trope of an unsolved case haunting a detective (or other worker within the judicial system) is a classic template for engaging, thought-provoking mystery. The script written by Campanella and co-writer Eduardo Sacheri weaves these weighty themes into a taut narrative, rarely losing focus. However, there are moments where the pacing suffers from having too many interests. Despite this, the script remains one of the highlights of a terrific film.
The cinematography is also stellar. The most commendable example of this is the incredible tracking shot at the football stadium, which took more than three months to prepare. However, the greatness of the camerawork is evident throughout the entire film. The brilliance of Félix Monti’s superlative cinematography can be seen merely in how he lingers patiently on a character’s back, while another character’s gaze takes them in; it’s a magnificent demonstration of how one can wordlessly cast suspicion on a person we thought we knew.
Campanella’s direction is also laudable. The opening sequence is so viscerally gripping that it grips you—then refuses to let go. The fact that Campanella edited the film himself is perhaps the most impressive formal aspect of the film; the story is stitched together with tragic grace, as though the painful memories, the ones that persistently refuse to be forgotten, define our lives.
However, some unconvincing moments throughout the story harm an otherwise fantastic film. For example, a tragic case of mistaken identity feels peculiarly forced for the sake of the plot; surely a hit squad would know what their target looks like, right? This pales in comparison to what is probably the weakest moment of the film, which unfortunately arises during what should be the story’s greatest revelation: the confession.
In an attempt to elicit a confession from their suspect, Esposito and Irene Hastings (Soledad Villamil) begin insulting the man in custody, implying he would be physically incapable of committing the murder: he simply wouldn’t have been strong enough to do it. Regrettably, the sequence is a tad ludicrous.
Besides the fact that their tactics of appealing to Gomez’s sense of pride are so obvious, the scene quickly becomes overdone. Hastings never ceases to insult him, referring to his noodle arms, narrow shoulders, mushy face, and following it all up by inferring he has a micro-penis. Of course, this is simply too much for any man to stomach: Gomez pulls out his genitals to prove he’s well-endowed, and therefore guilty of a despicable crime.
This doesn’t feel like an intelligent victory—it feels a little bit stupid, as though we were watching Bugs Bunny conduct a reverse psychology routine on an Argentinian Elmer Fudd. No one likes having their physical traits laughed at, but for this to result in a complete, law-binding confession seems very convenient; it’s an easy solution to a film that appeared unwilling to give them.
Another weak point of the film is minor tonal inconsistencies. Pablo Sandoval (Guillermo Francella), Espósito’s co-worker, is the humorous counterpart to an otherwise morbid tale of revenge and regret. However, he often seems out of place. The performances from Ricardo Darín and Soledad Villamil are deeply moving, so Francella’s cartoonish portrayal of an alcoholic often feels incongruous with the rest of the film. It’s important to have a foil so that a thriller does not become too morose and depressing. But there is a difference between creating levity and becoming tonally inconsistent.
However, the story never loses momentum for long. Just when you think that the story has transmogrified from an emotive, meditative thriller into a humdrum tale of revenge, the rug is pulled from under your feet. Our preconceptions about morality are closely examined, and we are left with a warning for those who are close to becoming lost in their memory: “A thousand pasts and no future. Forget about it, trust me; you will end up with only memories.”
The Secret in Their Eyes is a powerful treatise on what happens when you dedicate yourself to anger, grief, and vengeance. If the film had a thesis, it could be the well-renowned quote from the Buddha: “Holding on to hate is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.” We see people lose their lives to hatred, being consumed by vengeful desires.
However, the wise Buddha also provided an elegant solution to this predicament: “Hatred does not cease by hatred—only by love.” This is perhaps what Campanella intended from the beginning. When Esposito looks at his note ‘TEMO’, he adds an ‘A’ to the word: ‘TE AMO’ (I love you). It’s a subtle, moving way of conveying his shift in focus: he’s finished with the past—from here on out, he will not live in his memory. Instead, he will dedicate himself to the future, and commit himself to love.
ARGENTINA | 2009 | 128 MINUTES | 2.35:1 | COLOUR | SPANISH
Cast & Crew
director: Juan José Campanella.
writers: Juan José Campanella & Eduardo Sacheri (based on the novel ‘La pregunta de sus ojos’ by Eduardo Sacheri).
starring: Ricardo Darín, Soledad Villamil, Pablo Rago, Javier Godino & Guillermo Francella.
