Last Friday, Hopkins’s neighbor, the Baltimore Museum of Art, closed their “Psychoanalysts Look at Film,” series with the Argentine Academy Award winning detective drama El Secreto de Sus Ojos — or for those without Spanish dictionaries handy, The Secret in Their Eyes.
The series, which also featured The Messenger, Wild Strawberries and Precious, showcased films marked by a dramatic reveal and examination of human emotions and behaviors.
Due to time constraints, this reviewer had to skip out on the keynote psychoanalyst speaker who led a discussion after the screening, though the sizeable crowd only attested to interest in the subject matter.
On to the movie. The Secret in Their Eyes was directed and adapted for the screen by Juan José Campanella, working from Eduardo Sacheri’s novel, The Question in Their Eyes.
Mr. Campanella previously worked in American television, directing a slew of Law and Order episodes, which no doubt made him a capable helmer for this rich crime thriller.
The Secret in Their Eyes was released in 2009 to much acclaim and went on to become both the second Argentine film to nab the Oscar for best foreign film and the second biggest box office success in Argentinian history. One might worry that the resounding success the film accumulated would lead it astray into overhyped and overrated territory.
Those familiar with the movie, released in 2010, can remember being completely oblivious to both its plot and reception, but additional viewings only ensure the belief that The Secret in Their Eyes is worthy of every amount of praise it has provoked.
The film opens in medias res, smack dab in the center of a story that spans decades, with the protagonist Benjamin Espósito, played by Ricardo Darín, on a train pulling out of a Buenos Aires station as his one-time boss and love interest Irene Menéndez-Hastings, played by Soledad Villamil, chases him.
In the present day, circa 2005, Espósito is transcribing this scene, and then another in its place, as he struggles with the conception of his first novel.
The audience soon learns, after Espósito visits Judge Menéndez-Hastings for counsel, that he is intending to write the story of the Morales case, on which they served 30 years ago (Espósito was the investigating federal agent, Menéndez-Hastings his new department chief).
In June 1974, Espósito was assigned to the rape and murder of Liliana Coloto, the young wife of Ricardo Morales, played by Pablo Rago.
Espósito approaches the events like the standard case it appears to be, though he soon grows attached as he befriends Morales, touched by his extreme devotion to his wife, and thereby promises him that Liliana’s killer will receive life in jail.
Soon after, Espósito receives word that the case has been solved and the culprits, two construction workers, have been apprehended. Espósito quickly discovers that his rival colleague, Romano, ordered officers to select two scapegoats and beat a “confession” out of them
— compromising justice and integrity in a selfish attempt to advance his position in the work place.
Espósito gets himself and his wayward alcoholic friend Pablo Sandoval, played by Guillermo Francella, back on the case, picking up a clue after perusing Liliana’s photo albums.
The protagonist notices in several pictures that a friend from her hometown of Chivilcoy, Isidoro Gómez, stares intently and threateningly at her.
Espósito and Sandoval shift their focus to the suspect, going so far as to break into Gómez’s mother’s home to look for evidence. The partners get their hands on letters Gómez has sent her, but when the judge learns of their illegal tactics he closes the case.
Nevertheless, Sandoval discovers Gómez’s whereabouts from the underlying pulse and references amidst the correspondences, and the movie dives into its second and third acts, navigating through more twists and turns than a roller coaster.
What makes The Secret in Their Eyes so incredible and unique is its ability to juggle a multitude of motifs while simultaneously probing the utmost depths of human nature, leaving no loose ends in its wake.
It is not only a murder mystery, but also a love story as it details the suppressed feelings between Espósito and Menéndez-Hastings — largely due to class distinctions — throughout their 30-year relationship.
It is also a critique of government corruption — a multi-faceted portrait of justice and all its associations.
Does justice — in whatever form it takes — truly resolve a love lost? Can we ever even move past those we’ve loved and lost whose presences and absences have both marked our lives?
The Secret in Their Eyes asks all this and more. It is a hard film to review because to consider its most fascinating and thought-provoking elements is to reveal climax after climax.
If there is anything to take away from this review, it is simply to see this movie. There is nothing else quite like The Secret in Their Eyes.
