FILM 7: El secreto de sus ojos / The Secret in their Eyes (Argentina, Juan José Campanella, 2005), 129 mins., ALEXANDER STREET
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El secreto de sus ojos / The Secret in their Eyes (2009)
Dir. Juan José Campanella
Culver City: SONY Pictures Home Entertainment, 2010, 129 min.
Cast:
Soledad Villamil Irene Menéndez Hastings
Ricardo Darín Benjamín Espósito
Carla Quevedo Liliana Coloto
Pablo Rago Ricardo Morales
Javier Godino Isidoro Gómez
Awards:
Winner of 13 awards from the Argentinean Film Academy; winner of the 2010 Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film of the Year
Synopsis:
Benjamín Espósito, who has recently retired as a clerk in the criminal court in Buenos Aires, decides to write a novel about an unresolved rape and murder case from 30 years earlier. As he shares his plans with Irene, the judge that he has secretly been in love with for three decades, his initial involvement in the case is shown through flashbacks, as he sets out to identify the murderer. But the twists and turns of Argentine political history and the personal stories of Benjamín and his friends will continue to intertwine in unexpected ways.
- What color scheme does the cinematographer adopt in association with various characters and themes? (Pay particular attention to black-and-white vs. color photography and to the use of the colors red and green.)
- Examine the symbolism of open and closed doors.
- Describe the selection of music. What general atmosphere do these create, compared to other films we have watched? How does it lead you to react differently than you did to the novel?
- Is this primarily a love story? A political thriller?
- How important is the element of comedy in the film, compared to the novel?
- Which of the scenes were most violent and/or upsetting and why? How do they compare to parallel scenes in U.S. movies or in other Argentine films we have watched in this class?
- Comment on the effect of situating the most violent scene near the beginning of the film.
- Campanella has said in an interview, “El cine te ofrece la posibilidad de narrar con los ojos”/ “Cinema offers you the possibility of narrating with your eyes.” What do the eyes symbolize at various points in the narrative?
- How does the film interrogate the nature of justice and the responsibility of the individual to secure justice, in a deeply dysfunctional political context?
- How are Argentina’s legal institutions—the police and the courts—portrayed? Is there evidence of classism, racism, and/or corruption? Do these seem to be more extreme than in U.S. detective films?
- How is the friendship between Benjamín and Morales portrayed? To what extent is it an enabling relationship?
- What role does soccer play in this film? Is it significant that they capture Isidoro Gómez on a soccer field?
- How does Irene secure the confession from Isidoro Gómez and how does it relate to gender roles? Compare this to the parallel scene in the novel.
- Is justice served at the end of the film?
- Does Benjamín do the right thing in not reporting Morales’ crime to the authorities?
- Does he do the right thing in declaring his love for Irene, a married woman with children?
- In what sense does Campanella draw a parallel between memory of this specific crime from the 1970s and national memory of the political crimes committed by the state in the 1970s?
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