Great movie to watch when all other movies tick you off

Rating: Null/10 (20 December 2015)

Here's me going through my movie collection: "No. Nope. Too stupid. Too intelligent. Too juvenile. Too pretentious. Too predictable. Too unbelievable."
You'd think I would learn my lesson and stop shopping for movies at Blockbuster close out sales.
And then my finger hit "The Secret in their Eyes" and I thought "Hm, Academy Award winner, Best Foreign Language Film 2009... doubtlessly too political." But I popped it in anyway, figuring out of all my options I'd hate it the least.
Right from the first scene I knew this film had something important to say. And I'm not just talking about some canned socio-political cliché that wins many Best Foreign Film Academy Awards. This movie has an important personal message to tell, and it's woven into the story in a very careful way.
The trailer, as well as a lot of exuberant film critics, make this sound like a tense action packed thrill ride, but it's not. Even better, it's a quiet, human, often comedic tale that happens to have some great elements of "thriller" and "mystery" and "romance" without falling squarely into any of those predictable categories. In a sentence, the plot is about a retired court employee who, unable to forget a murder case from 25 years earlier, decides to write a book about it and thus dig up some old ghosts.
Yes, if handled like a John Grisham thriller, it could have fallen into a standard Hollywood formula, but in the expert hands of director Juan José Campanella (quite respected in his home country of Argentina but not yet as famous in the USA), the film balances itself as a thoughtful yet very engaging statement about human nature. I am reminded of another excellent award winner from the same year 2009, "Five Minutes of Heaven", a UK film that similarly focuses on a crime decades past and how different characters have been affected by the passing of time.
But what made "The Secret in their Eyes" even more interesting to me is the way it's not necessarily about a past crime, but it's also applied to past love, past opportunities and past (and present) obsessions. As a great line in the film goes: "A man can change his appearance, his job, his god. But he can't change his passion." Thus the theme is stated: this is about letting go, or not letting go. And whether we're talking about crime, justice, love or dreams, we can all relate.
I have to mention one thing with regard to the cinematography & visual presentation. This is the sort of movie that cinema geeks will love, and so will average people just looking for entertainment. Certain scenes are so expertly handled, yet not obnoxiously artsy, that you can't help but get swept up in them. For example, perhaps the crowning achievement is the "stadium scene" which is a 5-minute, uninterrupted shot that begins a mile in the air above a stadium before gliding over the field, into the stands, to a dialogue between two characters, then following behind them on a tense scene running through the stadium floors, into a bathroom, over a ledge(!), through some more twists, then back to the field ALL IN ONE CAMERA SHOT. Certainly it was edited to appear like one shot but it's seamless. Fans of Orson Welles' famous "Touch of Evil" opening scene (which itself takes us through the streets of a Mexican city in a brilliantly orchestrated 5-minute single shot) will love this sort of stuff.
If you have the opportunity to see this movie, whether or not you find yourself in a cranky mood like I was, don't pass it up. Last note about content warnings: there's a disturbing rape scene right near the beginning with some nudity and blood, one or two bloody but tasteful scenes, then there's a somewhat eyebrow raising (yet necessary) scene of frontal man parts. But if you, your kids and/or your puritanical parents can handle those, the film is OK for everyone. Since this is a non-USA film where animal cruelty laws don't necessarily apply, I thought I'd mention there is no animal cruelty, whether simulated or real. This is a great film which, I believe, demonstrates the finest of modern Argentinian cinema.