February 9, 2010: El Secreto de Sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes)
Argentina’s entry for consideration in 2009 and nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, The Secret in Their Eyes is a complicated story anchored by a police detective’s obsessive quest to solve a rape/murder case. Flashbacks to the original investigation in 1974 are interspersed with scenes set in 1999 as he continues to struggle to figure out what he’s missed, so we see how things originally developed and are exposed to the clues that will eventually lead him to the truth.
The particulars of the case are fascinating enough on their own, with the killer not simply disappearing but in fact being caught and put to trial and convicted and spending time in jail, but then being released due to politics and relationships in the prosecutor’s office. When the ex-prisoner later goes missing and is presumed dead, that’s officially the end of it, but not for the detective and the devastated husband of the young woman who was murdered. They both grieve the loss and their failure to come to terms with the lack of closure. 25 years later as the detective writes a book about his experience, and reconnects with a woman he first met and shared an attraction with around the time of the original case, he has a revelation and is able to figure out what happened.
They main idea here is that people may change, but their passions remain the same, and that’s the key to unlocking the truth. This is a gripping, original story, with many layers to the people and their actions. There’s lots of snappy dialogue, and I admittedly read the plot summary ahead of time which helped me to immerse myself right from the start. Everyone in this film seems to be serving a life sentence, regardless of convictions or crimes or settings. It’s good stuff.
A great, nuanced story always helps.
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