The Secret in Their Eyes

Can a five minute sequence win an Oscar? Probably not. But one five minute, uncut, special effects sequence in The Secret in Their Eyes definitely wowed cinemaphiles the world over. It certainly made me scratch my head.

When I see Optimus Prime transform, I know how they did it: 3-D modeling and thousands of computers rendering complicated elements for months on end. Simple. That doesn’t mean it isn’t totally badass. It certainly is. But I love a little filmmaking trickery.

The chase sequence in this film is one most extraordinary scenes in past memory and is an odd combination of practical camera tricks, complicated camera tricks, and subtle CGI. Filmmakers around the world are obsessed with showing off what they can do with faked/real single shots. I’ve included a few of my favorite at the end of the article. Common viewers don’t really care about that type of shit though, so it really is just filmmakers winking at each other.

Moreover, The Secret in Their Eyes beat out White Ribbon for the foreign film Oscar. It isn’t hard to see why. White Ribbon is a challenging film. Its style is antiquated, complicated, patient, and meticulous. As is the craft of The Secret in Their Eyes, but Secret is much more accessible.

The film opens in the year 2000 where Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darin) is writing a book about a murder/rape he investigated in the seventies. It is easy to tell that this investigation still haunts him over three decades later. It isn’t clear why. The film also opens with an extraordinary sequence of blurry images that push and pull out of focus as a man boards a train. It must have been done with green-screen or something. Shit is crazy.

Moreover, the film cuts back and forth from the modern era to the murder case. In the past Benjamin and his assistant Pablo (Guillermo Francella ) are two investigators who don’t seem to take their job too seriously. Or maybe they’re just not supposed to.

We get the impression early on that the rape case is not going to work out well. The investigators’ office is a sea of stacked documents, bureaucratic papers, and is just a chaotic atmosphere overall. Every time the phone rings, Pablo answers with a fictitious business name. He and Benjamin avoid doing work and speaking to people like they’re avoiding the plague. It almost seems like that is why they’re there, to avoid doing their job. Maybe it is?

Even when we meet the straight-edge Judge’s assistant, played by drop-dead gorgeous Soledad Villamil, we sense that avoiding work is commonplace, if not procedural. The director brilliantly frames shots of the stacks of documents with the characters in the film. As if the documents are characters themselves and the filmmaker is merely doing a subjective over-the-shoulder shot.

Then the murder/rape happens. The filmmakers do a good job to show how disturbed Benjamin is by this. Something in his mind clicks. He has to solve this murder. There are political undertones to this film which could almost be called didactic, but don’t worry, this is purely a whodunit.

But a truly spectacular whodunit. This type of film would never be made in the States. It is stubbornly patient and doesn’t allow the audience any clues to where it might lead. Its makers know the power of film language and what properly executed film techniques can say to an audience.

It is hard for me to say exactly what kind of tone the film takes. It is very Coen Brotherish with is combination of violence, comedy, suspense, romanticism, visual flair, and drama – all of which somehow mesh into one of the best films from last year. Regardless, at least rent the damn movie for the chase sequence – god damn – it is audacious.

Release date: Varied throughout 2009 and 2010.

Collin says: A+

You’ll say: A

My favorite long takes:

Tony Jaa giving boners to action lovers across the world in The Protector:

My hero Alfonso Cuaron and his emphasis on long takes in Children of Men:

My third choice was the Dunkirk scene from Atonement, but Youtube blocks them all from the United States,  so I feel obliged to at least link the beautiful song playing during that scene.

The last, and by far my favorite: Y Tu Mama Tambien