Sekret jej oczu

I'm somewhere halfway between fascination and enchantment. Campanella was able to imprint in his film the unmistakable emotionality of "Hispanic" culture, which is tossed in somewhere between deep experience and exalted kitsch. Sometimes I was brought out of the film by moments when the makeup was shining too brightly - both the real make-up and the narrative makeup. Anyway, The Secret in Their Eyes always has an answer ready - a moment that puts the story back in place. If tuned, it can be compared to Almodóvar's tender period around the film Talk to Her - it is exacerbated, swayingly lyrical and surrealistically beautiful, as if a soap opera, a thriller and a psychological drama intertwined. The acting is a firm fixture, the levels of storytelling are very legibly and clearly organized, and the result is thereby an easily accessible film that also surprises through its themes... However, I get the feeling that true perfection is still hindered by the ostentatious layer of makeup and a very conservative form of storytelling, which Almodóvar sarcastically makes fun of in Broken Embraces. (19.03.2010)

The genre classification is a bit misleading because much more than a crime story, The Secret in Their Eyes is a love story set in a country with a complicated political situation and dealing with years of military dictatorship. I didn't consider giving it five stars for even a second, but I had a tough time deciding between three and four. The screenplay has something to it and several scenes have a huge emotional impact, on the other hand, the film drags quite a bit, it's too lyrical for its genre, and it needed at least bolder editing. Overall impression: 75%. Addendum: I usually deduct a star from most movies in hindsight, but in this case, I state that I hurt it the first time because as the weeks went by, I kept coming back to it in my thoughts and I retrospectively appreciated its qualities. This film is more intimate and takes the story in different directions than its North American or European competition. It is its own - Latin American - and that is its added value. Moreover, the motif of relentless revenge over time is incomparably more cultivated and impressive than the tragicomic tale from the South Korean film Oldboy. (24.05.2015)

It's a film that quite interestingly addresses how the past can influence us, how it can come back because we haven't resolved it. These are stories that I quite like and I found the ending of the film quite impactful. But the relationship level didn't really work for me. It wasn't useless, but I still didn't feel much of anything from it. (22.11.2016)