How often do you see a movie about which you have not a single complaint, about which you cannot find a single fault, about which you have nothing but phosphorescent praise? The Secret in Their Eyes, winner of this year’s Best Foreign Film Oscar, is such a movie.

Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darín) is a newly retired criminal-court investigator who is haunted by an unsolved 30-year-old case. Hoping for some kind of closure, Benjamin decides to try his hand at writing a novel about the rape and murder of a young newlywed. His longtime friend, judge Irene Hastings (Soledad Villamil), with whom he’s been smitten since a young man, isn’t sure reopening the old wound is such a good idea.

Through a series of prolonged flashbacks, we experience his past in 1974 Buenos Aires, a time of great political upheaval. A young woman’s naked body is found and two immigrant workers are accused of the crime and forced to confess. Benjamin and his alcoholic partner Sandoval (comedian Guillermo Francella) aren’t convinced, and based on nothing more than a hunch, conduct an investigation of their own, intent on zeroing in on the real killer. Their search leads them to a man named Gómez (Javier Godino), but connecting their suspect to the crime proves exceedingly difficult in light of cumbersome Argentinean bureaucracy and political corruption. It isn’t long before Benjamin and Sandoval find themselves in their suspect’s crosshairs.

The Secret in Their Eyes is that most odd of films—a noirish romantic thriller. It is a study in obsession. It sucks us into Benjamin’s mania and refuses to let us—or him—go. We watch as he becomes blinded even to his own ravenous (and reasonable) desires in the single-minded pursuit of his goal. This is the movie David Fincher’s Zodiac wanted to be, but failed.

Writer/director Juan José Campanella is a filmmaker of multiple transfusions—surely the blood of Hitchcock, Scorsese and DePalma courses through his veins. His attention to detail and tone is exquisite. With consummate skill and equilibrium, he manages both grandiose shots and those of a haunting, intimate nature. His camera participates in the action rather than simply observing it. There is a scene, midway through the film, in which a camera drops from the sky high above Buenos Aires and plummets directly into a soccer stadium full of tens of thousands of screaming fans, settling on our investigators as they try to track down a suspect. The camera follows them as they locate, chase and finally apprehend their man. And all of this is done without a single (visible) cut. Later, Campanella shows that he also knows how to wow on a more terrifyingly intimate scale when our protagonists are caught in an elevator with a killer. They know who he is. He certainly knows who they are. Yet neither acknowledge each other…at first. The penultimate scene might just be the most exacting, perfect, pristine consummation of revenge ever captured on film—though it does not take the form you think it will.

And yet, as the final reel spins, we realize we have been led astray, that the film isn’t about the case at all, but rather going left when we should have gone right, the possibility of making up for our misdirection and the opportunity to consummate a love affair that’s been smoldering for decades. The Secret in Their Eyes is ultimately a sophisticated and rather ephemeral examination of bittersweet memory, a musing on the past, on choices made and opportunities missed. “Memories are all we end up with,” says one character. “Pick good ones.”

© Copyright 2010 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.

Cast: Ricardo Darin, Soledad Villamil, Guillermo Francella, Pablo Rago, Javier Godino, Jose Luis Gioia
Directed by: Juan Jose Campanella
Rated R for a rape scene, violent images, some graphic nudity and language.
Running time: 124 minutes