El Secreto De Sus Ojos (The Secret In Their Eyes)

The winner of the 2009 foreign language Oscar, surprisingly beaing both 'A Prophet' and 'The White Ribbon'. This is a good film, maybe a very good one. It perhaps does not have quite the consistency and swagger of 'A Prophet' or the visual and thematic audacity of 'The White Ribbon' (and vice versa), but it has its moments.
This film is about what we see, what we hide, and how this comes to haunt and define us. The use of focus is the most important aspect of this film; deep focus is deliberately not used, we have the central character failing to see most things as more than background. Except, of course, the women. She comes into his focus, and once their he both makes too much of her and tries to pretend she isn't their at all.
This film is at its best when we have the repressed psychoses of the central relationship, well done when filtered through the central criminal investigation plot that is otherwise diverting rather than fascinating. The lead's belief that his focus can singularly decide on how is innocent and who is guilty tells us much, nearly more about his relations with the women than about himself.
The acting is excellent, the faces of the leads matching well and conveying through posture their different psychologies and the social structure of the piece.
The framing device works well at the start, and then it all gets a bit wierd. It is a smart move to question the neat, wrapped up train-chasing ending, whether or not the idioticy of this moment could have been expressed otherwise than direct comment on an imaginary novel. The last ten minutes of the film does go a bit mental, and rather does down the rest of the film. This kind of hysterical plotting really isn't necessary in what is really a fascinating character study.
Well worth acclaim, though flawed this film has a part of it that can rank in the higher echelons of world cinema.