The Secret in Their Eyes

The Secret in Their Eyes opens with a memory in blurry gray hues of a coupleparting from each other at a train station long ago. The Oscar-winning Best ForeignLanguage Film easily moves between then and now, the reflections of astruggling novelist and the reality he is trying to depict. Director-writerJuan Jose Campanella has similarly crossed borders, directing episodes of “Law& Order: SVU” and helming this splendidly filmed crime movie fromArgentina, with its spacious two-hour running time that allows for greaterpsychological depth than is usually possible in American broadcast television.

The novelist,Esposito (Ricardo Darin), is a retired investigator from the Buenos Aires prosecutor’s office. Writing ishis way of working through a cold case that still sticks in his throat decadeslaterthe 1974 murder-rape of a beautiful young schoolteacher. Even with thehelp of his Sancho Panza-like assistant, Sandoval (Guillermo Francella), and abeautiful assistant prosecutor, Hastings (Soledad Villamil), Esposito’sinvestigation continually ran against dead ends in a labyrinth of mystery.Someone in the police was in a hurry to close the file, offering up a pair ofdrifters as the killers. Esposito saw through their confessions, which hadobviously been obtained through a harsh beating. Finally he was given awarning: The worst that will happen to Hastings, who comes from awell-connected and powerful family, will be lack of advancement; Esposito, anaspiring young man from the lower middle class and without a protector, couldfind himself dead. Argentina’simpending military coup casts a lengthening shadow as the story unwinds.

Esposito andHastings, who could have been but never became lovers, suffuse The Secret in Their Eyes withbittersweet nostalgia over lost opportunities and roads untraveled. The actingis apt, subtle and deeply felt. A warm and even slightly flirtatious friendshipbetween the old colleagues has survived the inescapable decay of time.

The cinematic showpiece is the lone chase scenepitting Esposito and Sandoval in a heart-pounding foot race with a suspect,pursuing him around a soccer stadium like a desperate rat in a concrete maze.Much of the film is set at night or indoors where the lamps are low and thelighting indirect. Along with its story of corruption and power, The Secret’s dark color palette and tautdialogue, leavened with moments of humor and erotic tension, suggest anunusually well-conceived update of film noir.