The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de sus Ojos) (2009)

My last article, about the film noir Los tallos amargos (The Bitter Stems), was released in 1956, and its story takes place in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de sus Ojos) also takes place in Argentina, mostly in Buenos Aires. Released fifty-three years later, it obviously marks a contrast with the earlier film. Both films explore similar themes of betrayal and suspicion, although in very different ways. In Los tallos amargos, the main character is consumed by suspicion and the need for revenge. In The Secret in Their Eyes, the main character is the victim of another character’s need for revenge and a grudge held over many years.

Click here to see my article about Los tallos amargos (The Bitter Stems).

The Secret in Their Eyes starts with fuzzy, slow-motion shots of people at a train station. An as-yet-unidentified man (Benjamin Esposito) heads for a train about to leave the platform and the train station. An as-yet-unidentified woman (Irene Menéndez Hastings) is left behind on the platform, but she runs after the train. She catches up enough to put a hand on the window of the car in which Benjamin is riding.

The film cuts to Benjamin Esposito writing the opening sequence just seen on the screen. He is dissatisfied and crosses out all of it. He starts writing again about a day further in the past: June 21, 1974. Now he is writing in the voice of Ricardo Morales, and the day is one that Morales will never forget. Morales, as a character in what Benjamin is writing, recalls a lovely day sharing breakfast with his new bride. Benjamin is dissatisfied with this opening, too, and rips up what he has written. When he starts writing again, he describes a violent rape scene that is depicted on-screen for viewers in horrific detail.

Benjamin visits his old friend, Irene, at his old office at court. She was once his coworker, and she is still working at the court as a judge. He tells her that he has started writing in his retirement and wants to write about the Morales case. She and Benjamin have never talked about the case since it was closed. Irene doesn’t really answer Benjamin’s questions about it, and she is rather sarcastic with him, but she does give Benjamin an old typewriter, one he used at the office, so that he doesn’t have to write by hand with a fountain pen. Benjamin tells Irene he has no excuses now to avoid writing, but he just doesn’t know where to start. Irene tells him to start with what he remembers most clearly, which is the moment when he met her. The film cuts to that moment, in flashback, when Benjamin fell in love at first sight.

The murder/rape victim in the Morales case is Liliana Coloto, twenty-three years old, a school teacher, recently married to Ricardo Morales. Police Inspector Baez and Benjamin, who is assigned to the case through the intervention of a fellow court investigator, Romano, talk to Morales about his wife and deliver the news about her violent death. Two builders, contractors, working in the apartment building become suspects in the murder. They are Jacinto Caceres, a Bolivian, and Juan Robles, an Argentinian. They become suspects at the suggestion of Romano, Benjamin’s career rival. But Romano just wants the case solved and to take credit for it. It is obvious that Caceres and Robles are not the killers because a neighbor saw only one man the day of the murder; however, Romano instructs police officers to beat a confession out of them. Benjamin files a complaint against Romano, who will hold a grudge against Benjamin until he exacts revenge.

(This article about The Secret in Their Eyes contains spoilers for both the film and the novel on which it is based.)

Isidoro Gómez, an old hometown friend of Liliana Coloto’s, was a suspect for Benjamin. In the present, he tells Irene about Gómez, about the way he worships Liliana in all the photos that her husband still has of her. He also tells her that he wants to follow up now because he has been sidetracked for twenty years, and he doesn’t want anything to sidetrack him now. Irene is interested in the case, but she is even more interested in Benjamin’s novel. He is happy to indulge her curiosity because he has been in love with Irene since he first met her, and the novel gives them an excuse to discuss it and thus stay in touch.

Benjamin’s coworker, Pablo Sandoval, is an alcoholic. He even drinks on the job. But he is capable of great insight, and he discovers that Gómez has a passion for soccer, Academy Soccer, in particular. Benjamin finds Pablo at his favorite watering hole, where Pablo tells him what he has learned: “A guy can change anything. His face, his home, his family, his girlfriend, his religion, his god. But there’s one thing he can’t change. He can’t change his passion.” Because of this observation, Pablo and Benjamin eventually find Gómez at a soccer match.

Gómez is goaded into confessing by Benjamin and Irene, but he is eventually released on Romano’s orders. Romano now has a prominent position in the Eva Péron government. Péron is the president of Argentina, and she is leading a dictatorship with violent right-wing tendencies. Her overthrow by a military coup ushers in a period in Argentinian history called the Dirty War. (For more information at Wikipedia about the historical context of this period in the film, click here.)

The remainder of the film follows Benjamin’s research into the Morales cold case and his efforts to write it all down as a cohesive story. This narrative structure allows for plenty of flashbacks, a hallmark of noir films. My description of the film may sound like the switch back and forth between the present (when Benjamin is writing his novel) and the past (when he was still working and investigating the Morales case) is very confusing, but that wasn’t my experience watching the film. Repeat viewings of The Secret in Their Eyes help, too, just like they do for films noir and more recent films. I always say that attention to detail is always important when viewing noir, and that certainly applies to watching The Secret in Their Eyes.

The story is also set against political corruption and violence in Argentina. This general background has a very personal effect on Benjamin Esposito. His rival Romano exacts vengeance on Benjamin for his willingness to point out Romano’s corruption in the Morales case. Romano is capable of holding a grudge for a long time, and by the time he can exact his vengeance, he holds a lot more political power in a corrupt administration. He uses his political power to convince others to help him, making it even easier for him to use deadly violence.

I read The Secret in Their Eyes, by Eduardo Sacheri, which is the basis for the film. Some of the key differences between the film and the novel include the following:

◊ Inspector Báez helps Benjamin Esposito escape Buenos Aires to the province of Jujuy in the novel. In the film, Irene Menéndez Hastings helps him escape.

◊ Pablo Sandoval sees Benjamin off at the train for Jujuy in the novel, thus adding a bit more weight to their friendship. In the film, it is Irene who sees him off, and viewers see this scene more than once: as it happened and as Benjamin remembers it.

◊ Ricardo Morales and Isidoro Gómez are both dead when Benjamin visits Morales in the novel. In the film, both are alive, and the film doesn’t specify what Benjamin does after he learns this information.

◊ Pablo Sandoval dies of cancer in the novel, and Benjamin has a chance to return from Jujuy to attend his funeral. In the film, he is killed in Benjamin’s apartment, which becomes a warning to Benjamin that his life is in danger.

◊ The film doesn’t say what Benjamin does after he learns that Ricardo Morales and Isidoro Gómez are still alive. The case thus isn’t resolved, at least not in legal terms. The novel is very clear about how Benjamin handles the news that Morales and Gómez are both dead.

◊ In the novel, Benjamin decides to declare his love for Irene, but readers do not learn what her response is. In the film, her response is depicted much more clearly.

The film and the novel are obviously the same story, in spite of these and other differences. The novel’s author, Eduardo Sacheri, cowrote the screenplay with the film’s director, Juan José Campanella. But like so many noir films, the film adaptation is just as good as the novel on which it is based. I enjoyed both very much.

The audio commentary by writer and director Juan José Campanella is available on both the DVD and Blu-ray versions of the film. Campanella provides lots of insights into the film, including the following:

◊ Finding the right tone is important from the start, the first scene. There are two story lines: a love story and detective story, and they don’t function on the same level.

◊ The film starts with a memory, the love scene where Benjamin Esposito leaves on the train, and Irene Menéndez Hastings is left behind on the station platform. People remember specific details; the rest is blurry.

◊ All the storylines are introduced in the first four minutes.

◊ Guillermo Francella (as Pablo Sandoval) is first introduced as blurry image in the background in the court office. He is very popular in Argentina, especially for his comedic performances. Campanella didn’t want his first appearance to provoke laughter or lead viewers to anticipate any comedy.

◊ The widower Ricardo Morales has two sides. He is capable of great love and passion for his wife Liliana Coloto, but he also plots a cold plan for revenge and can keep it going, hidden, for twenty-five years. His phone call to Isidoro Gómez’s mother is a memory of what Morales must have told Benjamin Esposito. Morales’s methodical side starts the phone call, but his passionate side takes over when he breaks down crying and has to hang up in the middle of the conversation.

◊ Low-angle shots allow the audience to feel like they are hiding in each scene, like they are spying on the action.

◊ Many criticized the fact that Esposito spotted the killer in the couple’s photographs. But Campanella says that police officers and court investigators develop an instinct for this sort of detail that is very hard to describe and explain. And Esposito doesn’t think he spots the murderer right away; he sees a suspect, something strange. And it ties in with the theme of the film: how the eyes can reveal so much.

◊ After his release from prison, Isidoro Gómez is working as a bodyguard for Isabel Perón, right-wing president of Argentina from 1974 to 1976. Her ouster helped to fuel Argentina’s so-called Dirty Civil War, which lasted from 1976 to 1983.

◊ In the train station, when Benjamin escapes the capital city of Buenos Aires after Sandoval’s murder in his apartment, he and Irene are dressed in black and white. Everyone else is dressed in color. It evokes a movie from the 1940s, perhaps a romantic one.

The Secret in Their Eyes contains is a wonderful film about a love story that is set against the backdrop of political corruption and violence. The betrayal, misunderstanding, and vengeance that form the basis of the plot are shocking. The narrative draws you in and keeps you engaged, even if, like me, you are not well versed in Argentina’s recent political history. I was truly surprised by the ending.

I usually find the novel to be more enjoyable, but that rule is turned on its head when it comes to noir adaptations: The film is almost always just as good as, if not better than, the novel, even if it makes substantial changes to the plot, as this screenplay does. The author of the novel, Eduardo Sacheri, is credited with cowriting the film’s screenplay. I don’t know how much he contributed, but I did wonder if he used the opportunity to try other scenarios, other outcomes, for some of his characters in the novel. Either way, both the film and the novel are wonderful on their own merits.

August 13, 2009, release date  •  Directed by Juan José Campanella  •  Screenplay by Eduardo Sacheri, Juan José Campanella  •  Based on the novel La Pregunta de sus Ojos by Eduardo Sacheri  •  Music by Federico Jusid  •  Edited by Juan José Campanella  •  Cinematography by Félix Monti

Ricardo Darín as Benjamin Esposito  •  Soledad Villamil as Irene Menéndez Hastings  •  Pablo Rago as Ricardo Morales  •  Javier Godino as Isidoro Gómez  •  Guillermo Francella as Pablo Sandoval  •  Mario Alarcón as Juez Fortuna Lacalle  •  Mariano Argento as Romano  •  José Luis Gioia as Inspector Báez  •  Carla Quevedo as Liliana Coloto  •  Juan José Ortiz as Agent Cardozo  “  Kiko Cerone as Molinari  •  Fernando Pardo as Sicora  •  Sergio López Santana as Jacinto Cáceres  •  Elvio Duvini as Juan Robles  •  Alicia Haydee Pennachi as Gómez’s mother

Distributed by Alta Films (Spain), Sony Pictures Classics (United States)  •  Produced by Haddock Films, 100 Bares, Tornasol Films

The Secret in Their Eyes, by Eduardo Sacheri  •  New York: Other Press, 2005  •  2011 English translation by John Cullen

Los tallos amargos (The Bitter Stems) (1956)

I had wanted to see Los tallos amargos (The Bitter Stems) since I first heard Eddie Muller commending it in glowing terms. (The DVD cover calls him a “noirchaelogist;” I know him mostly from his DVD commentaries and YouTube videos of his intros and outros as host of Noir Alley at Turner Classic Movies [TCM].) The DVD I borrowed came with featurettes that explain how the film was rediscovered and restored by Muller’s Film Noir Foundation, among other organizations and personnel. The film has been released on Blu-ray and DVD by Flicker Alley, so it is now getting the exposure that it deserves. I have seen the film several times now, and it did not disappoint.

I have always thought that one of the defining features of film noir is that it shows us what not to do, and Los tallos amargos is one of the best examples of what not to do. Alfredo Gasper, the main character, bases his most momentous decisions on suspicions and assumptions. He does not look for proof; he does not consider anyone else’s opinion or insight. He barges on ahead and, because this is film noir, he makes fatal mistakes.

(This article about Los tallos ameragos contains some spoilers.)

The film starts with a high-angle shot of a cab arriving at a station. The camera angle switches to a somewhat low-angle shot when two men, Alfredo Gasper and Paar Liudas, get out of the cab. An outdoor clock strikes midnight, and it is obviously hot. The two men walk into an underground rail station, where Gasper buys a one-way ticket for Liudas. They are heading to Ituzaingó, Gasper’s hometown outside Buenos Aires, for some time off. Gasper gives Liudas the excuse that a two-way ticket would expire before they could return to the city for work.

Once Gasper and Liudas are on the train for Ituzaingó, several flashbacks (in the form of memories for Gasper, and another hallmark of noir) reveal some of the circumstances leading to this one-way trip for Liudas. Gasper is a journalist at a newspaper called La Voz. Noriega, his chief editor, berates him for his lack of initiative. Nebide, the man for whom he freelances as a translator, complains about his lack of “fluidity” and still does not have the money to pay him. Andreani, a fellow reporter at La Voz, tells Gasper that he, Gasper, likes to obey, but he likes to obey important men, men who he believes do important work. He warns Gasper that this characteristic is a dangerous proclivity.

Gasper goes out with his girlfriend, Susana, after work. They see a war film, which upsets Gasper, and they leave the theater early and abruptly for Susana’s apartment. Their subsequent conversation reveals that Gasper’s behavior is not unusual, that it has happened before. Susana asks about it, but Gasper once again refuses to offer any explanation. On the way home after visiting Susana, Gasper stops at the Magyar nightclub, where he meets Paar Liudas for the first time. They meet by chance (or fate, a feature of noir, which plays its part here). Liudas overhears another reporter talk to Gasper about their work, and he is immediately drawn to Gasper. He tells Gasper that he was the editor of a newspaper, and he was also involved in smuggling before he was a bartender at the Magyar. Someone tipped off the police and he escaped, but he lost all his papers, including his ID documents, in the police raid. He tells Gasper that he doesn’t exist without papers.

It's an odd conversation, one that would probably raise alarm bells for most people. Liudas reveals a lot about himself in a single conversation, and not all of what he reveals is particularly flattering. He has to work under the table because he has no documents, and he has no documents because he lost them in a police raid. He admits to illegal activity, but he doesn’t tell Gasper any of the details of his smuggling operation. He is interested in ways to make easy money—and quickly. Gasper’s defenses may be down because he needs money, too, and he doesn’t feel like he is being paid what he is worth as a newspaper reporter.

Liudas wants to starts a journalism correspondence school to make a quick buck, and he wants Gasper to be his partner. Liudas doesn’t hide the fact that he intends to swindle people by offering cheap courses that he and Gasper create themselves. He tells Gasper that their work will be easy because there are fools everywhere who will believe anything. They also create a fake news service by stealing other journalists’ work and putting false names on the articles. They offer these articles in return for free advertising for their correspondence school.

Susana questions Gasper’s business dealings with Liudas, and viewers learn that Gasper may not be all that different from Liudas. He doesn’t reveal everything to Susana; viewers are privy to his innermost thoughts:

• Susana: “Do you like doing that? To swindle?”

• Alfredo: [to himself] “I don’t know if I like it. You are swindled. And you swindle the rest. Like it or not, you swindle for money. And now I want money. I need money.”

• Susana: [interrupting Alredo’s thoughts] “Alfredo, you haven’t answered me.”

• Alfredo: “You only get rich by swindling, destroying. What, do you want me to keep suffering at the newspaper?”

Liudas eventually reveals to Gasper that he wants all the money transactions for the correspondence school in Gasper’s name. He reasons that it will take too long to renew his identification papers, and he wants to make quick money. He finally reveals that he wants the money so that he can bring his family, his wife and two sons, from Hungary to Argentina. He is worried about them, especially his older son Jarvis, because they are living behind the Iron Curtain, under a Soviet Communist regime, while the Cold War is on. This sounds like a noble cause to Gasper, who wants to do something noble with his life. He throws himself into the cause, just as his fellow news reporter, Andreani, had predicted.

Both Liudas and Gasper are complicated characters, and they may be more similar than each knows. At one point in the film, Liudas tells Elena, a woman he has met in Buenos Aires, the same story about wanting to bring his wife and sons to Argentina from Hungary, but he mentions more of his reasoning, his justification, for creating the correspondence school. He says, “I needed the money, Elena. And I got it. Money saved a lot of people in Europe [during World War II]. It gave false passports. It bought prison guards. So I made money as I could. For them [his wife and sons], Elena. For them to come.” Liudas also mentions some regret for bringing Gasper into his swindle, which helps to soften Liudas’s image somewhat for viewers.

This conversation between Liudas and Elena reminds me of Casablanca, in which a good deal of the plot, in addition to the unresolved love affair between Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund, revolves around people trying to get out of Casablanca any way they can. Most of their efforts require getting enough money to bribe officials for the documents they need to leave the city. Click here for my article about the film.

Gasper becomes suspicious of Liudas, perhaps because he invested so much of his time and profits into a cause that wasn’t really his own. And he starts to doubt that the Liudas family even exists. He eavesdrops on one of Liudas’s phone conversations with Elena. He follows them to a nightclub and tries to listen to their conversation at another table, but all he hears is that Liudas is quite sure that he (Gasper) believes everything that he says, including what he says about his family and a son named Jarvis. Gasper’s suspicions become all-consuming until he is driven by rage to commit murder.

Gasper bludgeons Liudas to death with a sledgehammer at his family home (their destination on the train ride that starts the film) and buries his body in the backyard, along with some seeds that he found in a letter that Liudas was carrying. Gasper doesn’t know where the seeds came from because it started raining when he began digging Liudas’s grave, and the ink on the letter that came with the seeds has run so badly that it is illegible. Viewers learn later that they are acacia pignalta seeds, and their bark has a lot of tannin, which makes them very bitter.

From this point onward, Los tallos amargos depicts the aftermath of the murder and its effects on Gasper. He doesn’t seem to be overwhelmed with guilt. He even says in another interior monologue, this time addressed to Liudas after his death, that he just wants to avoid being discovered, to avoid having to pay for what he has done. But he does panic whenever he fears that someone may be close to discovering the truth. When this happens, Gasper’s weak moments are revealed. He isn’t sorry for what he has done, but he surely doesn’t want anyone else to know about it, a very noir situation indeed.

The DVD that I watched came with commentary by author and film historian Imogen Sara Smith. It has lots of information about the production of the film and its place in the film noir universe. Here is a list of only a few of the great points that Smith makes:

◊ Los tallos amargos is renowned in Argentina but was unknown in the rest of the world until recently.

◊ The first scene with Andreani, in the newspaper offices, is especially interesting because of the insights that he offers to Alfredo Gasper. He tells Gasper that he, Gasper, wants to serve a great man, not be a strong leader himself. Gasper is the kind of person that makes fascism successful.

◊ Susana is a successful modern woman. She works and lives on her own in her own apartment. Gasper still lives in his family home, with his mother. Susanna is not a femme fatale in this film noir.

◊ The scene with Susana naked under the sheets tells us that she and Gasper are sleeping together. It is not a scene that would have been allowed in American films of the 1950s because of the production code.

◊ War and violence are recurring motifs in the film.

◊ Argentina didn’t join World War II until late, in 1945. The novel on which the film is based makes it clear that Gasper would have fought for the Nazis had he joined the war. Many Argentines did join the war and fought on different sides.

◊ Hungary was still behind the Iron Curtain in 1956. It is very believable that Liudas would have family back in Hungary about whom he would be very worried.

◊ Liudas knows how to spot a mark. He is both sympathetic and suspicious, a very ambiguous character. He could always be just a likable rogue.

◊ Newspaper reporting was a much more glamorous occupation in the 1930s and 1940s.

◊ Correspondence courses have something in common with modern for-profit colleges: They are scams.

Los tallos amargos (The Bitter Stems) definitely shows us what not to do. Gasper bases his actions on suspicions and assumptions. The only time that he considers the consequences of his actions is when someone seems to be on the verge of discovering the truth. He makes several fatal mistakes, and Liudas isn’t the only one to suffer the consequences. Unlike other noirs, where viewers have to pay attention to details, Los tallos amargos is a simple story. There are some cultural references that are hard for modern-day, non-Argentinian viewers to understand, but Imogen Sara Smith’s commentary clarifies some of them. It’s definitely worth a listen after seeing this wonderful film.

1956 release date  •  Directed by Fernando Ayala  •  Screenplay by Sergio Leonardo  •  Based on the novel by Adolfo Jasco  •  Music by Astor Piazzolla  •  Edited by Gerardo Rinaldi, Antonio Ripoll  •  Cinematography by Ricardo Younis

Carlos Cores as Alfredo Gasper  •  Julia Sandoval as Susana  •  Vassili Lambrinos as Paar Liudas  •  Aída Luz as Elena  •  Gilda Lousek as Esther Gasper  •  Pablo Moret as Jarvis Liudas  •  Bernardo Perrone as Andreani  •  Virginia Romay as Mrs. Gasper

Produced by Artistas Argentinos Asociados