2009 Winner, The Secret in Their Eyes

The Secret in Their Eyes

Director:  Juan Jose Campanella

Distributed by:  Sony Pictures Classics

Released: August 2009

Country:  Argentina

Director Campanella has directed a bunch of American TV drama shows, most notably 17 Law and Order: Special Victims Unit episodes and a couple L&O: Criminal Intents.  In watching The Secret in Their Eyes, this makes perfect sense—this movie comes off a bit as a long detective show with the twists of your average L&O.  There is something satisfyingly prosaic about this film, like turning on a decent cop show and knowing the formula, and enjoying it not in spite of the formula, but in part because of it.

Benjamin Esposito is a retired police detective writing a novel about a case he caught a quarter of a century ago.  He probably planned that when he retired, he would have some great stories to tell/sell, but like a lot of you (us), when he started typing, he realized he couldn’t write for shit.  So he calls up his old boss from those days hoping to see if she can give him some insight.  Yes, I said “she”—Ben’s old boss, you see, is Irene, and Ben certainly had quite the thing for her way back in the days they worked together.

The Big Leer

Most of the movie is told in flashback:  The case was a doozy—a young, engaged girl raped and murdered shortly before her wedding.  Her fiancé is distraught, but of course, he’s the prime suspect.  Benjamin’s rival detective solves the case pretty quickly, but only because he beat the snot out of a couple of innocent bystanders in order to get their damning testimony.  Ben doesn’t believe the witnesses are telling the truth, and keeps digging because that’s what good detectives do.  In looking at the vic's family photos, Ben keeps seeing one pretty sketchy character in the background giving the murder victim The Big Leer in every picture.  He seems awfully creepy.  Could the secret be in his eyes?

What makes this story different than the L&O episodes Campanella directed is that in the American criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders.  In 1975 Argentina, you can rape and kill whomever you fancy and get off scot-free, as long as you are working for the Perón government.  Benjamin likes the the leering guy in the photos for the crime, but this suspect works for the right people and walks.

They'd have solved it in under 60 minutes, with commercial breaks

The whodunit aspect of this film might have been a bit flimsy, but I really liked the connection of the murder story to the stunted romance between Benjamin and Irene.  See, he and Irene never quite made a go of it back in the old days.  But Ben stayed in love for 25 years and he knew that all along, despite her saying no and marrying another guy, the secret was in her eyes that she really wanted to be with him all along.  Ben makes a few too many assumptions about the eyes, if you ask me, but actor Ricardo Darín plays him as a likable, if flawed, regular guy--sort of an Argentinian Gene Hackman.  I’ll leave it unsaid as to whether he was right on the killer, or Irene, or both with the eyes thing.

The Title:  El secreto de sus ojos.  This was remade recently starring Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) and Nicole Kidman (not in 12 Years a Slave, I don’t think).  I haven’t seen it, but the reviews and box office receipts weren’t kind.

The Culture:  Argentina was a pretty corrupt place under the Peróns, and most of the film takes place at the tail end of the last Perón's presidency (the President was Juan Perón's third wife, Isabel).  The opposition was made up of leftist thugs, though, so neither side were the good guys.  But letting a guy off for rape and murder because he works for the government seems wrong.

Agenda Danger:   Seems like Isabel Perón didn't worry too much about police ethics or in trying to get her own musical, like Perón's second wife did.

Best Picture that year:  The Hurt Locker

Rating:  Fun to watch, like a good cop show.

1985 Winner, The Official Story

The Official Story

Directed by:  Luis Puenzo

Distributor:  Almi Pictures

Released:  April 1985

Country:  Argentina

I love movies that pull the rug out from under us.  Or more accurately, movies that pull the rug out from under the main character.  I’m talking about when someone is going through life thinking he or she has it all figured out, then suddenly and completely unexpectedly, a momentous revelation changes everything.  What I find fascinating is watching how the character reacts, and how he or she will deal with the surprise.  Sometimes it’s a classic full-on twist at the end of the film, like in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, when Bruce Willis acts in quiet shock and then quick resignation.  Or maybe the story is all about the epiphany itself, like when Keanu Reeves discovers his whole reality is completely false in The Matrix (“Whoa!!”).  Sometimes, the big reveal may not be the main plot point, but still a huge surprise, like in The Crying Game, when Stephen Rea discovers there is more than he realized to the girl he had fallen for (“Aw, nuts!”).

The Official Story has one of these reveals.  But in this movie, the rug is slowly, slowly pulled out

The happy family:  Gaby, Roberto, and Alicia

from under Alicia, the affluent wife of Roberto, a high-ranking government agent in the Peron government of 1980’s Argentina.  She is raising their daughter Gaby, a lovely little girl who is very much attached to her father, in an idyllic family setting.  Roberto is a likeable enough man who would do anything for his family.  Alicia, who teaches school, is elegant and kind-hearted, and very much loves her husband and daughter.  Which means these fine people are really neatly set-up bowling pins just waiting to get knocked down spectacularly.

This time of dictatorship was also the setting of the very engaging Best Foreign Film from 2009, The Secret in Their Eyes. In The Official Story, Roberto struggles with reconciling two parts of his life: On the one hand, he is working for a ruthless dictatorial government and is being well-compensated for it; on the other, he is a product of a humble upbringing and wishes to have a loving family life.  His father, who is a poor but righteous man, gives him serious jazz for being who he is, which completely ticks him off, mostly because he knows his father is right.

Tony, how could you afford this?

The genesis of Alicia’s loss of footing comes from her old friend Ana, who describes to her what she has gone through for having been in a relationship with a man considered subversive by the government.  Alicia isn’t unlike Carmella Soprano in The Sopranos, blissfully unaware of what her husband does for a living, but enjoying living in a nice house with a nice family.  Should she leave well-enough alone for her daughter’s benefit, or is it important to find out what unpleasant truth may be around the corner?

The Title:  La historia oficial.  You have to watch to find out the real story.

The Culture:  The film takes place during the so-called Dirty War of Argentina in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, when the military government’s policy toward its dissidents could be summed up as: “I see dead people.”  People all over the country disappeared like my kids when it’s time to do dishes.  The film looks at what it must have been like to be a member of the government who did that dirty

Vanished:  Child actor

work and what it must have been like to be on the receiving end.

Agenda danger:  The film is a political statement, made about 2 years after the restoration of a democratic government.

Best Picture that year:  Out of Africa

Rating:  A bit unnerving and sad, but the story is an intriguing one.  I found myself empathizing with Alicia, who knows that she is better off not knowing the truth, but strives to find it anyway.  I also couldn’t help feel bad for Roberto, who struggles with his conscious about his role in the government and his relationship with his family.