When the Argentine film "In Their Eyes" won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in the spring of 2009, beating out the real favorites "The White Ribbon" and "Ajami - City of the Gods", it was a palpable surprise. Now German moviegoers can finally see for themselves whether Juan José Campanella's great film noir has rightly earned its various awards. In the end, the answer can really only be "Yes".
Buenos Aires in 2000: retired detective Benjamin Espósito (Ricardo Darin) wants to use his newfound free time to write a novel. In the book he wants to come to terms with a murder case 25 years ago that has never let him go. He wants to share his memories with the judge Irene Hastings (Soledad Villamil), his great but unrequited love, whom he has not seen since that time. In the process, he realizes that his old feelings are far from cooled.
In the mid-1970s, Benjamin and Irene worked together on the case of a young woman who was brutally raped and murdered. A suspect was quickly found at the time, but it wasn't until many months later that Isodoro Gomez (Javier Godino) was then caught. It seems that now not only Benjamin, his lovable but alcoholic partner Sandoval (Guillermo Francella) and Irene can finally let go of the case, but also that Ricardo Morales (Pablo Rago), the husband of the murdered woman, can finally find the peace he has so desperately sought since his tragic loss. But then a dramatic twist occurs that will change the lives of everyone involved forever...
"In Their Eyes" is a wonderful film. On one side a gripping thriller, on the other a poignant romantic drama and a story about a wonderful, very special male friendship. Campanella links the two different time levels on which the complex story is told in an extremely elegant way, so that the viewer is never confused but captivated from the very beginning. The greatest feat of the production, however, is that what is in itself a very sad and dramatic story about an extremely gruesome crime is told with a lightness, tenderness and also wonderfully quiet humour that one would not necessarily expect after the first few frames.
Submerged in wonderful images and carried by superb, pleasantly understated performances, "In Their Eyes" moves far from the well-trodden paths of mainstream cinema, but without merely appealing to an audience accustomed to arthouse films. Rather, the Oscar winner is quite great entertainment cinema of the particularly valuable kind. Thrilling, moving, amusing, sad and simply beautiful - cinema can hardly be better. Absolutely watch!
Ein Artikel von Frankfurt-Tipp
