The Secret In Their Eyes
Follow your passion?
Maybe you just can’t deny your passion. Scratch someone’s surface and you find an immutable focus, a longing for a pursuit that might seem trivial to others, but is everything to them.
That’s a key element of "The Secret In Their Eyes". That if you want to know who someone truly is, focus on their heart’s desire. Whether it be romance or…
There are religious zealots who believe they can turn gay people straight. That’s as easily accomplished as getting someone to stop focusing on the object of their affection.
It’s an impossibility.
I went to see this movie because a friend wrote the music. Last Fall we were at his home in the West Valley and he told us the film was probably going to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. That kind of talk? It’s plentiful here in Hollywood, where everybody’s a huckster, where everybody’s full of shit.
But lo and behold, not only was "The Secret In Their Eyes" nominated, it won.
I’d like to say this was enough for me to run out to the theatre to see it, but what truly got me off my butt was the e-mail. Out of the blue. Readers testifying.
That’s when I know something’s real. When I hear about it from multiple unconnected sources, who’ve got not only nothing to do with each other, but nothing to do with the project.
You see a flick like this and you’re dying to go to Argentina. They may speak a foreign language, but they’re every bit as sophisticated as we are, with the same hopes and desires.
And possibly the same government.
Justice is relative in Argentina, at least in this movie. And watching, one couldn’t help but wonder if this was also true in the U.S. We believe our nation is all about freedom, but then we repress rights in the name of safety. Amazing what people will sacrifice when they’re scared. Just take a look at the Patriot Act.
And at this point, all of America looks almost the same. The Interstate leads you to identical fast food joints and cookie-cutter Wal-Marts. Whereas in Argentina, there’s still a vast difference between the metropolis and the hinterlands. Well, maybe that’s not true, maybe this is just a movie. But you want to go there and find out for yourself.
While Hollywood is releasing sequels and remakes, "The Secret In Their Eyes" is positively original. We used to make this kind of film in America. See "The Usual Suspects" or "L.A. Confidential". But in the name of profits, we’re done with this paradigm. Story takes a back seat to special effects.
But story is primary, right out front in "The Secret In Their Eyes".
And the performances! The guy who plays Sandoval…despite being an alcoholic loser, you love him.
And nobody’s beyond reproach, everybody screws up and tests the limits, just like in real life.
But what sticks with me, beyond the incredible soccer segment, is this underlying theme. How we can’t deny who we are.
Sometimes it makes no sense. I’m insatiable when it comes to skiing. In the words of Depeche Mode, I just can’t get enough. I went to college in Vermont to be able to ski every day. Even living in L.A., even taking a few years off, I couldn’t beat my addiction.
The way so many are addicted to people.
But in the States, these addictions are the unspoken underbelly. Unrequited love is dismissed. You break up with someone and you’re instantly over it, you find someone new, heartbreak is for losers.
Used to be losers lived in music. But now even they’ve been crowded out.
And they certainly can’t live in films. Unless they’re portrayed by gorgeous stars slumming.
On a really hot summer day, when the sun is bright, go to the theatre and see "The Secret In Their Eyes". It will unlock some of the secrets inside you.
