El Secreto de Sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes) is a film about unrequited love, memories, loss, revenge and justice all within the political context and backdrop of the beginnings of Argentina’s murderous military junta and “los desaparecidos”. Benjamín Esposito, a retired legal counsellor, is writing a novel based on a case back in 1974, which also means that the film goes back and forth between 1974 and the present day. The case still plagues his memories where a young woman, Liliana, was raped and murdered (he promises Liliana’s husband that he will find the killer). The police, aided and abetted, by the legal system try to pin the crime on two young construction workers (who weren’t even at work at the time of the murder) they “confessed” after being severely beaten by the police but Esposito intervenes and gets the two men released from jail. There is a very powerful scene when Esposito physically challenges (other colleagues have to drag them apart) another senior legal advocate demanding why he was complicit in trying to frame these men.. the senior advocate replies, “why do you care, they are only blacks”! Another suspect, Isidoro Gómez, soon comes into the frame, this time based on evidence.
Esposito is also in love with his boss, Irene, who is on the verge of marrying someone else. But instead of saying how he feels he keeps quiet, even at a climatic scene which had me thinking “Brief Encounter” the moment to declare their feelings is lost. And that is a central theme to the narrative, lost love bound up with justice. Esposito aided by another legal counsellor, Sandoval, doggedly search for the killer even though as far as the senior judiciary is concerned is closed. Irene agrees to re-open the case and puts her own job into jeopardy. Esposito explains to Irene that he saw Liliana’s husband sitting by the train station watching people go hoping to glimpse Gómez and that justice has been denied to him. But justice isn’t so straightforward nor simple under a political and legal system on the verge of a military takeover. And that even after 20-odd years justice, as well as love, both inexplicably bound, are sill being denied. Juan José Campanella who directed this film said that it would have been easy for the politics of Argentina of that time to overwhelm the story and that it would take many, many films to explain and illustrate that political period. It is precisely the subtly of the politics interwoven between the personal makes this film powerful. Ordinary people being caught up in a society sliding into a military dictatorship where it’s about tracking political “subversives” as opposed to finding murdering rapists!
There’s a scene where Esposito is having coffee with Liliana’s husband. They discuss what will happen to the man who murdered Liliana once caught such as punishment and the death penalty. Neither of the characters subscribe to the death penalty and it was especially refreshing to witness a discussion that wasn’t based on revenge which is dispensed at the end of a gun that seems to be a common occurrence in the American films, bound up with the ideological obsession with guns and retributive justice. The film actually makes the viewer think about memories, loss and whether time heals. Can justice be dispensed now as opposed to the past? There are many questions thrown up, the horrors of life along with some very funny scenes between Esposito and his superiors. It’s a refreshing, intelligent and powerful film to watch. It also won the Oscar for best foreign film this year, but to be honest having watched some of the contenders in that category I can say they were much more impressive, diverse, politically powerful by having the capacity to say things of interest than the piss-poor formulaic contenders in the English speaking categories…..
If you get the chance, I really recommend the article in this month’s “Sight and Sound” magazine on “The Rise and Rise of Latin American Cinema”…
Posted by harpymarx 
