The Secret in Their Eyes Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

The Secret in Their Eyes Blu-ray Movie Review

The secret's out: 'The Secret in Their Eyes' must be seen to be believed.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 25, 2010

I don't know it it's a memory or a memory of a memory I'm left with.

The old saying says that the eyes are the windows to the soul. The Secret in Their Eyes traverses beyond the retinas and well into man's essence, the picture examining two of the most basic of instincts that define his existence: love and justice. For the picture's lead character, the secret within his eyes -- or the sum of his soul -- is an unfulfilled quarter-century quest to declare his love for a beautiful colleague and solve a brutal crime. Others in the picture share similarly light and dark secrets, but it's that constantly-shifting imagery of savagery and beauty and love and loathing that's at the center of Director Juan José Campanella's Oscar-winning film. A picture that's built on a subtly-constructed love story but centered around the search for a killer, The Secret in Their Eyes plays down the romance from a visual and thematic -- but not substantive -- perspective in favor of the darker elements that define the picture on its surface but not at its core. The Secret in Their Eyes is aptly-titled, for the picture is constructed around underlying secrets that aren't necessarily realized on the physical level but left to fester at a more metaphysical plane of existence seen only through those two tiny portals that reveal more about a man than his actions and words ever could.

An obsession begins.

It's the turn of the millenium, and investigator Benjamín Espósito (Ricardo Darín) is struggling to come to terms with a quarter-century search for both a vicious killer and answers as to why his life didn't turn out quite the way he had hoped. He's struggling to collect his thoughts on paper, starting, stopping, and starting again a novel based on the last 25 years of his life. He turns to his old friend; colleague; and someone who, just maybe, could have been something more in his life, Judge Irene Menéndez-Hastings (Soledad Villamil), for guidance. Their meeting helps Benjamín remember the brutal details of the death of young Liliana Colotto and the subsequent search for her killer. Benjamín -- then in 1974 an upstart investigator working with the competent drunkard Pablo Sandoval (Guillermo Francella) and a younger and less experienced Irene -- quickly becomes obsessed with the case. When two innocent men are nabbed for the killing and the case is considered closed, Benjamín goes above and beyond the call of duty and the scope of the law to bring suspect Isidoro Gómez (Javier Godino) to justice. He's aided by stalwart widower Ricardo Morales (Pablo Rago), husband of the late Liliana, a man who only wants to see his wife's killer punished to the fullest extent of the law. So begins a complex, absorbing, and on many levels tragic quarter-century search for answers that will come to define -- for better or for worse -- the lives of all involved.

The Secret in Their Eyes is a poetic, flowing picture that defies the limitations of the cinematic medium and effortlessly absorbs its audience into the experience thanks to brilliant direction, flawless acting, and a mesmerizingly layered story in the way it weaves what seems like a lifetime's worth unrealized love alongside the grim realities of an unsolved and decades-old criminal case. This is a picture about obsessions: the first of unfulfilled dreams of love, the second of a quest for justice that drives the body, mind, and heart but paralyzes the soul. Juan José Campanella finds an incredible balance between the two, even as one dominates the other in terms of raw screen time, but look more closely and see how the picture always frames itself around the mostly unspoken passion between Benjamín and Irene. That their feelings for one another dominate not the basics of the picture but its every underlying current -- and the audience's imagination -- is a credit to both the quality of direction and the believability of the performances. That unseen but nevertheless palpable fire between the leads never succumbs to the more procedural elements that see the characters try and piece together the crime, even as that element leads to a shocking final revelation that further solidifies the picture's themes of unseen consequences and the true passions of what lies behind the eyes. It's a picture of misdirection both thematically and stylistically; Campanella frames both the story and the visuals that support it in such a way so as to involve the audience but never quite allow them to feel like they're front-and-center and privy to everything that's happening both on the surface an behind the scenes which, in this case, are the many secrets behind the eyes and deep within the souls of its complex characters.

Campanella's framing of the picture only reinforces its obfuscation and themes that suggest the unseen, the unrealized, those elements not visible in the natural but that exist, rather, beyond the physical realm. His camera allows the audience to enter the picture as an observer; there's always a sense -- whether in shaky handheld scenes or even steady and static shots -- that his desire is to bring the viewer into the movie, but he does so in a way that seems to always either obscure part of the frame, dominate it with something other than his characters, or zoom so closely to an actor that the side of a face or the eyes seem like the only things that exists in the world. He's not simply telling the story by pointing the camera towards it; he's visually reinforcing it with every carefully-structured shot that in some way never quite seems to let the audience in on exactly what's happening, even as they're watching it all unfold before them. It's not just smart direction, it's brilliantly absorbing direction, and few films manage to tell a story by deliberately hiding it as well as The Secret in Their Eyes. Better yet, the film is one that revels in good-old fashioned character complexities; there simply aren't many pictures that paint characters as this well-constructed through both verbal and visual cues as well as more abstract elements that ultimately come to define them -- and the film -- far beyond their basic attributes. The acting in The Secret in Their Eyes is perfect; the characters so completely absorb themselves in their roles -- with Ricardo Darín's performance that's all at once and through the entire picture soulful, troubled, haggard, defeated, inspired, confident, intelligent, handsome, stoic, and sincere standing above the rest -- that viewers are bound to forget, at times, that this is a movie. Everything -- the story, the characters, the direction -- supports that deeper plot structure that aims to construct a picture that's far beyond the capabilities of most anything else out there by, yes, getting back to the basics that insist on building towards a goal through emotionally, intellectually, and psychologically complex elements rather than simply aiming to stimulate the more visceral senses as would other movies that strive, but fail, to achieve storytelling at this level of excellence.

The Secret in Their Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Secret in Their Eyes arrives on Blu-ray with a very clean 1080p transfer. Shot digitally, the image appears smooth and highly detailed with something of a slick and glossy veneer. Sony's transfer captures the finest textures of twill jackets and wrinkly faces very well; the image is certainly not wanting for greater clarity, detail, and depth in any area. Colors are also strongly rendered, appearing well-balanced and natural with every shade -- from the palest of browns and grays to the brightest reds -- appearing stable and accurate. Flesh tones never waver too far from a natural shade, and blacks prove inky and absorbing. Occasional banding and background noise, which seem more inherent to the source material than a mar in the transfer, are occasionally evident. The Secret in Their Eyes is a steady and honest Blu-ray transfer. It's neither going to wow nor upset any member of the audience, whether a casual Blu-ray fan or a hardcore videophile. Sony's transfer holds up well and does all that's asked of it admirably enough.

The Secret in Their Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Secret in Their Eyes debuts on Blu-ray with a steady Spanish-language DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Much like the video transfer, Sony's lossless soundtrack is convincing and stable but without any sense that it's something approaching the upper-echelons of Blu-ray presentations. The Secret in Their Eyes is a dialogue-driven film, and this critical element is reproduced without a hitch. Of the picture's other elements, light music and nicely-realized train station atmospherics make up the picture's opening shots, followed by various elements that add a nice bit of audible texturing through several layers of supportive sound, whether the general din of the city or the raucous crowd noises heard during a soccer match in chapter nine that engulf the soundstage but don't quite create a wholly seamless or otherwise completely convincing environment. Several discrete elements -- such as a ringing cell phone heard early in the movie -- prove incredibly realistic. The track feels about as spacious as one could hope for as part of what is a fairly routine sound design. The Secret in Their Eyes isn't going to wow the senses or stir the soul in terms of its lossless soundtrack, but Sony's latest lossless DTS presentation gets the job done.

The Secret in Their Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Secret in Their Eyes features several extras, including a Spanish-language (with English subtitles) audio commentary track with Director Juan José Campanella. Without any time wasted, Campanella immediately jumps in with an analysis of the plot, the picture's structure, and the work of the actors. His commentary remains intelligently spoken and extraordinarily focused and insightful; it's easily recommended as a must-listen (and/or read, as the case may be). Behind the Scenes of 'The Secret in Their Eyes' (480p, 4:12) is a disappointingly brief Spanish-language featurette (with English subtitles) that sees cast and crew discussing the picture, intercut with scenes from the film and behind-the-scenes clips. Casting 'The Secret in Their Eyes' (480p, 10:38) features rehearsal footage with various actors, including Jose Luis Gioia, Sebastian Blanco, Carla Quevedo, Mariano Argento, David Di Napoli, and Mario Alarcon. The piece is in Spanish with English subtitles. Also included is BD-Live functionality; the trailer for The Secret in Their Eyes (1080p, 1:22); and additional 1080p trailers for A Prophet, Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, Get Low, "The Pillars of the Earth," Please Give, Animal Kingdom, Micmacs, and The White Ribbon.

The Secret in Their Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Secret in Their Eyes is in every way a superior picture that finds in its every element cinematic perfection. Not only is the film brilliantly acted, amazingly scripted, and directed at a level well beyond what most pictures enjoy, The Secret in Their Eyes is also a movie that transcends the medium not only in the way it effortlessly and completely absorbs its audience into the experience, but in the way it finds so many complex levels and intricate structures that allow the film to look beyond the eyes and into the souls of men where lives lived, loves lost, and justice unrealized tears at the very fabric of his existence and consumes him to no end. Director Juan José Campanella's picture is a masterpiece of cinema that every cinephile need experience, preferably more than once. Sony's Blu-ray release is unfortunately absent a more thorough supplemental section, but it does deliver a quality technical presentation. Highly recommended primarily on the strength of the film.