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#35 - The Secret in their Eyes
Juan Jose Campanella, 2009
When a young woman is raped and murdered in 1970s Buenos Aires, it falls to one investigator to try to bring the perpetrator to justice but his quest for justice hits a number of devastating complications that still plague him decades after the case goes cold.
All in all, a pretty deserving recipient of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. The "cold case" premise has become something of a staple in modern crime fiction, but here it's put to interesting use. The alternating between the present day and the 1970s is handled well thanks to the interaction between Ben (Ricardo Darin) and Irene (Soledad Villamil), whose relationship is complicated by a variety of factors both in the past and present. That relationship is a major part of the film and of course the characterisation is what becomes more important than the mystery at the core of the narrative, especially when
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I think it's a testament to the film's quality that any attempt to explain its story beyond the familiar premise would spoil it severely and really, the less you know about this film when going in, the better. It's a shame, because there are some great moments - a worthy highlight for cinema fans would be the lengthy one-shot that starts with a helicopter shot into a football stadium before following the lead detectives into the bowels of the stadium as they chase down a perp. Even without that there's some slick photography with a great emphasis on strong colours that makes virtually every shot in this film a strong one. Though I do have some minor misgivings about the film, for the most part it's a lot stronger than my rating might suggest and it is definitely worth at least one viewing for anyone who likes crime investigation stories, but it goes beyond a regular whodunit without a problem.
Juan Jose Campanella, 2009
When a young woman is raped and murdered in 1970s Buenos Aires, it falls to one investigator to try to bring the perpetrator to justice but his quest for justice hits a number of devastating complications that still plague him decades after the case goes cold.
All in all, a pretty deserving recipient of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. The "cold case" premise has become something of a staple in modern crime fiction, but here it's put to interesting use. The alternating between the present day and the 1970s is handled well thanks to the interaction between Ben (Ricardo Darin) and Irene (Soledad Villamil), whose relationship is complicated by a variety of factors both in the past and present. That relationship is a major part of the film and of course the characterisation is what becomes more important than the mystery at the core of the narrative, especially when
WARNING: "The Secret in their Eyes" spoilers below
the case involving the murdered woman is actually solved about halfway through the film but that doesn't actually mean justice has been done
I think it's a testament to the film's quality that any attempt to explain its story beyond the familiar premise would spoil it severely and really, the less you know about this film when going in, the better. It's a shame, because there are some great moments - a worthy highlight for cinema fans would be the lengthy one-shot that starts with a helicopter shot into a football stadium before following the lead detectives into the bowels of the stadium as they chase down a perp. Even without that there's some slick photography with a great emphasis on strong colours that makes virtually every shot in this film a strong one. Though I do have some minor misgivings about the film, for the most part it's a lot stronger than my rating might suggest and it is definitely worth at least one viewing for anyone who likes crime investigation stories, but it goes beyond a regular whodunit without a problem.