El Secreto De Sus Ojos by Juan Jose Campanella - 2009
February 12th, 2010 | 
Author: 
In a simple word, this Spanish movie is yet another marvellous addition in the category of world cinema. With an intense storyline and a strong casting team, Juan Jose Campanella’s El Secreto De Sus Ojos (English Title: The Secret in Their Eyes) can easily match the success of some of the famous South American blockbusters like Amores Perros, Sin Nombre and Central Do Brazil.
El Secreto De Sus Ojos is a story of Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darin) who gets emotionally attached to the “rape and murder” case of a young girl while investigating. The husband of girl Ricardo Morales (Pablo Rago), a bank employee, goes to the railway station everyday after his job in search of the killer. He believes that one day he will be successful in his mission to catch the killer of his wife. On the other hand, while working Benjamin falls in love with Irene Hastings (Soledad Villamil), her boss.
Campanella as a writer of El Secreto De Sus Ojos has done a perfect job. The movie, in fact, takes you back to flashback and is very well portrayed in each and every scene. The “rape and murder” in the movie which affects Benjamin actually took place almost 30 years back. But in El Secreto De Sus Ojos the current story of the movie has been well blended with the flashback and the whole movie as it was narrated by Derin, is just brilliant. The direction is just extraordinary and there are many scenes which are shot in such an elegant way that it can easily give a tough competition to any top notch directors globally. All the leading characters are very natural and gave mind blowing performances in El Secreto De Sus Ojos. Double exposure effects are brilliantly used in the initial shots where images of faces and backgrounds are merged beautifully. Even Campenella captured the Argentine lifestyle, architectures and the effect that death of your loved ones can create are portrayed quite flawlessly in this Spanish romantic drama thriller El Secreto De Sus Ojos. However, this is not exactly a so called thriller movie, but a thriller in a romantic drama. Comparing with other movies like Amores Perros and Sin Nombre, the story here moves at quite a slow pace. It is more sort of a movie where you need to get involved in the movie and enjoy it. Still I will say that El Secreto De Sus Ojos is not as good as Amores Perror or Sin Nombre (Just my personal preferences though). This Spanish masterpiece has already been nominated for Oscars. El Secreto De Sus Ojos is highly recommended.
Watch the trailer of El Secreto De Sus Ojos
My Rating - 6/10
Learn More About the Movie on IMDB
Posted in Movie Reviews | 
Tags: Argentina, Argentine, Cops, Drama, Investigation, Juan Jose Campanella, Love, Murder, Rape, Romantic, Spanish, Thriller 
Not a “Spanish” movie. It’s a movie with funds from Spain but in fact, it’s a movie from Argentina, as nomenee for best foreign picture for this country. The director, actors and crew are from Argentina.