Quiet, dramatic, beautiful, touching, well acted, gorgeously filmed...what else do you want?

Rating: 9/10 (9 February 2011)

El secreto des sus ojos (2009)
A quietly building up of suspense and romance , a terrific movie. It has some of the slow pace punctuated by violence of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and it shares the steadfast leading man (Ricardo Darin), willing to plod along until the crime is solved. And it's filmed with a contemporary edgy but warm eye, the camera often moving between things so the subject is half seen, or not seen at all, and yet it is so natural you just get sucked in further.
The plot may seem ordinary at a glance, with a pair of investigators, one a very funny alcoholic (Guillermo Francella), going after a man who raped and killed a woman, but it isn't really this main idea that matters at first. In the classic fashion of some great detective movies, it's the characters and how they proceed that matters. We come to know the two men (as well as actress Soledad Villamil, a tangential love interest) and wander through less common edges of Argentina, where this was made.
The storytelling is given depth by moving back and forth over a 25 year period, and this laying out of ideas slowly makes you pay attention. It's very smart this way, grabbing the viewer. By the end, the tragedies begin to really move you, the final large twist (or two) to the story is utterly believable and sensational, and the love story becomes as archetypal as "Dr. Zhivago" and as beautiful. A lovely, involving, and satisfying film.