Cinema World Tour, Film #22
Country: Argentina
It's always a pleasure to watch such well-directed, well-written and professionally made films from foreign countries. The Secret in Their Eyes is one of those and even won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film – absolutely deserved, despite the fact Un Prophète and The White Ribbon were also nominated in the same year. The film also offers us one of the greatest and most underrated single-shot scenes of all time, the incredibly suspenseful football stadium scene. HOW did they do that.
It's undoubtedly a good film, but after all, a little bit disappointing – or maybe, my expectations were just too high. The story wasn't so special, actually quite ordinary for a crime thriller. I was waiting for some surprising story twists at the end, or simply for more complexity, which both didn't come. The film had a lot of chances though: For example is the story told by a man who's writing a novel about his experiences 25 years ago. How easy would it have been to make him an unreliable narrator? Even the characters in the film itself talk quite often about memories, that we choose them or how they can be blurry sometimes.
Nevertheless, The Secret in Their Eyes remains a great study about obsession and passion. It explores what happens with the human mind when we can't let go and find our peace with the past, being constantly absorbed by it – because of guilt, regret, missed chances and so on.
When searching for a good film from Argentina, this is it. Wild Tales is also a good argentinian film, but doesn't reach this film's quality, style and complexity.
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