The Secret in Their Eyes
This year's Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film, Argentina's "The Secret in Their Eyes", opens in the San Francisco Bay Area on Friday, April 23rd. The film has become the highest grossing film in Argentina's history, and swept Argentina's version of the Academy Awards. Part crime thriller, part political allegory, and part love story, the movie has garnered rave reviews in its home country and around the world.
The story centers on a detective, Benjamin, played by Argentinean star Ricardo Darin (previously seen in "Nueve Reinas"), who reopens a cold case from the past that he has never been able to solve. He relies on the help of a beautiful judge and former colleague, Irene, played by Soledad Villamil, as they work together to solve the murder of a young woman in the 1970's, during the dictatorship in Argentina. The movie mostly follows the hunt for the at-large killer, and also focuses on the nascent romance between Benjamin and Irene. Reviews of the movie have focused on how well the plot is constructed on the pace at which the plot moves along. The film's director, Juan Jose Campanella, has a background in directing TV shows; he has directed many episodes of "Law and Order: SVU", so he clearly knows how to build suspense and film a chase scene. There is one scene in the movie that has been written about extensively, and that is a chase scene that takes place in a packed soccer stadium. That scene alone should be worth the price of admision.
If you like thrillers, movies with political undertones, and stories filmed amidst gorgeous urban backgrounds like Buenos Aires, you should make an effort to see "The Secret in Their Eyes". It is playing at the Embarcadero Center Cinemas in San Francisco and elsewhere in the Bay Area.
