Justice served, then what?

Rating: Null/10 (8 September 2010)

The first thing to mention is perhaps although this movie juxtaposes between two time frames 25 years apart (early 70s and late 90s), it is easy to follow because progression along both timelines is simple and linear.
Part of this movie is a crime thriller about tracking down a rapist-murderer (Javier Godino). The bitter irony is that under the lawless environment of Argentina in the early 70s, the convicted criminal was soon released because he can serve as a useful tool and weapon in the hands of the extreme right government. It's those who brought him to justices that became fugitives.
A parallel theme is the subtle romance between those two who brought the criminal to justice. Irene (Soledad Villamil) was an Ivy League legal fresh grad returning to Argentina, naïve to the harsh political realities that corrupted every aspect of daily life. Working for her was seasoned court investigator Benjamin (Ricardo Darin), street-wise but still with a fire in his belly. Their social and education discrepancy was sufficient to keep their feelings for each other at the smouldering stage. When the criminal was set free, while Irene was protected by the status of his politically powerful father, Benjamin had to go into exile, in the form of a transfer to a remote area. When their passion finally flared at the train station as they said goodbye, it was a little too late.
A third theme evolves around the victim's husband (Pablo Rago) who saw the cruel reality even before the rapist-murderer of his wife was apprehended. To him, even killing the criminal (and thereby becoming a criminal himself) was too light a punishment and the nearest to poetic justice would be life imprisonment. But under the environment of the time, there was little hope that justice would be served. He seemed destined to live the rest of his life in gnawing agony at the injustice.
The movie actually starts 25 years later with Irene now a judge (married with children) and Benjamin retired (divorced) and trying to write a novel based on this painful case. Upon their re-encounter, he asks her to bring back the past memories (and with that's, inevitably, past emotions) but her gentle response is "The past is not in my jurisdiction". As the story unfolds as the audiences enters into a roller-coaster of many-faceted emotions as they realize that there are a lot of loose ends from 25 years ago that clamour to be resolved. The final plot twist is echoed in my summary line.
The acting is uniformly superb.
Much talked about is one long (10 to 15 minutes) take in the middle of the movie starting with an aerial shot zooming in onto a soccer match in a packed huge stadium and ending with a close-up of apprehending the criminal. While a lot is credit is due to this clever endeavour, it is a contriving show-off, sort of "Mother, look, no hands"! There seems to be a split-second cutting when the camera zooms into the spectator crowd scene but even if that is the case, the technical achievement of the ensuring portion of the continuous take deserves credit. But for good style, I would much prefer the long-take at the beginning of "Snake eyes" (1998). And then, of course, neither of these is anywhere remotely comparable to "Russian Ark" (2002).
Looking within "The secret in their eyes", I much prefer a far less showy montage starting with the sound of a whistling kettle off screen. The current scene is then cut into a dimly-lit frame with THE kettle in the blurred background and the protagonist at the front struggling with the draft of his novel. This is followed by a close-up to the desk, showing his hand putting down a pen, all the while with sound of the kettle whistling in the background. His hand then disappears from the screen while the camera still focuses on the table with writing paper and pen, and after a few seconds, the whistle stops.