What kind of film is ‘The Secret in Their Eyes’?
It’s ultimately very difficult to define the ‘nature’ of this work by Argentine director Juan José Campanella, a well-deserved winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Film this year.
And what if it is simply and naturally a love story? The kind of hidden and repressed love that a man carries deep within his soul for a lifetime, unable to admit it to himself?
The answer might lie in a note written 25 years earlier by the film’s hero, the legal investigator Benjamin Esposito, played by actor Ricardo Darín, who finds it when, upon reaching retirement age, he sits at his desk to write a book. A collection of memories.
Following the thread of his memories, he rediscovers the people who were the protagonists of those life moments.
Among them is a woman, a colleague from those past times—portrayed by the sensual Soledad Villamil—whom we understand certainly loved him in the past and perhaps still does today.
And the truth may be in that trivial note where he had written the word ‘temo’ (I fear in Spanish), which could have become a love note with just one letter added, an ‘a’ away from becoming ‘te amo’ (I love you).
What did that ‘temo’ mean then? The fear of Buenos Aires during the dark years, it was 1974, when Juan Perón left power to the military, and young investigators like Benjamin Esposito were not welcomed by those who wanted a ‘politicized’ justice?
Or was it the fear of getting entangled in an investigation that put him in such danger that it cost his colleague and friend Pablo Sandaval his life (an outstanding performance by Guillermo Francella, living up to his reputation as a comedic artist), and that forced him, for life or death reasons, to request a transfer to a distant Andean town?
Or was it rather his inability to admit to himself first and to his colleague next, who was also his superior and from another social class, his feelings for her (…a thing too complicated for him)?
It is only at the end of writing his novel and memoirs that the protagonist puts his past behind him to return to the present, find the courage to finally open his eyes and see ‘in her eyes’ that love that perhaps had waited for him a lifetime.
One might even regret the French title of the film which only partially captures the magic of the original Spanish: ‘El secreto de sus ojos’ (The Secret of Her Eyes).
Because this ‘secret’ is the love that Benjamin will rediscover in the eyes of the one who inspired such a strong and lively feeling in the past and which he had not wanted or been able to see back then.
This is why we define it as a ‘long and slow’ film: because a film like that of José Juan Campanella, with its unforgettable virtuosity in script and dialogue, can only be an Argentine film, these people clad in what one might think is tragedy but which turns out to be a beautiful and noble pride. But a pride that is almost paralyzing, preventing them from fulfilling their desires and often missing out on life’s significant appointments, like that of patient love which, fortunately, waits for them a lifetime.
‘Triste, solitario y final’ (sad, lonely until the end) says a beautiful expression by Argentine writer Soriano. But also ‘hombre vertical’ (upright man) like the film’s protagonist, Benjamin Esposito, who stands alone against his past weakness but who will find the strength to come back and seek love.
