The Secret In Their Eyes

Throughout the time you watch The Secret in their Eyes, there is a lump inside you that expects Benjamin to confess his love to Irene. If he does that, things will become a lot simpler for you, a lot more relieving. But working as an investigator under her, Benjamin never tells Irene that. He snaps at his alcoholic friend Sandoval, who can produce women-pleasing one-liners whenever a beauty walks in. Benjamin rues over the incapability to do that. But, The Secret in their Eyes isn’t a love story. It isn’t a mystery film. It isn’t a crime thriller. It is also not a drama based on a crime. It’s a film that can easily fit into every one of these genres yet still stand out as none of them. It has tinges of everything sprinkled appropriately throughout. But more so, it’s about few people and their devotion at something that never left their mind completely - a brutally murdered woman! Benjamin wasn’t happy when he was being sent to investigate the murder of a young, married woman. But it didn’t remain that way once he had seen the woman and her dead body, with her smiling photograph placed at the nearby desk. Benjamin (Ricardo Darin) becomes engrossed not only with Liliana Colotto (the murdered girl) but also with her husband, Ricardo Morales. The film works at different levels.

It works its way calmly, although there is always a guttural, hurried gesture present throughout. Morales does not hope to see the man behind Liliana’s murder go through the death sentence; he wants him to serve life imprisonment. Benjamin promises that. His intuition towards Isidoro Gómez (a former lover of Liliana) being the killer turns right. How did Benjamin find that out? Isidoro, in all the photographs was looking at Liliana with looks that resembled a young man’s passion towards a young woman he adores. The case, and Benjamin’s subsequent fascination with Ricardo’s life-long love for his wife is largely portrayed through the novel that Benjamin plans to write, starts writing, loses track of, then picks up whenever Irene hits his mind.

A true love never dies; what may kill it is human being’s inability to remember everything. Juan José Campanella, the director of this ingenious film, does not wait for a specific time to entertain, or surprise us. He begins the journey by slowly introducing us to the characters in the film, and by the time the film ends, you are left with a feeling where you start caring about each one of them…even the killer. The effect it had on me, I want to keep that throughout my life. The couple Ricardo and Soledad make is nothing like ever seen before. It’s pure love; it’s an implicit, yet tangible love they share. The Secret in their Eyes is cinema at its benevolent best.