By Daniel Cohen, Santa Monica Reporter

“The Secret in Their Eyes,” the 2009 foreign language Oscar winner, was an interesting choice, especially in light of the other contenders, a group of ambitious, highly stylized dramas, (“Un Prophet,” “Ajami,” “The White Ribbon”) with unique directorial stamps.  It is especially interesting, since on its surface this Argentine drama appears so cool and conventional.

Academy voters, who generally skew older, were probably attracted to the movies’ appealing, middle aged cast, and its adult sensibilities. The story proceeds at a leisurely pace, and though it never rests, it honors multiple aspects of the complicated story, with a subtle, overarching emphasis on the social and political contexts.

It starts with a dream of two people unhappily parting at a train station.  Beautifully shot and edited, the sequence is arresting, but slightly overwrought.  Our feelings about it are mixed; there’s something a little too Hallmark card about it.  But it’s quickly revealed as occurring in the mind of a retired police official struggling to write his life story.  So it’s actually the equivalent of purple prose.  Right from the start you sense the presence of an alert, ironic sensibility behind the camera.  And then,  without warning,  a jarring flash back to a grisly murder, followed by an uncomfortable reunion with the officers’ former boss, a woman who may or may not have been the character in his autobiographical novel.

Is this a movie about an unresolved murder, corruption at the upper levels of the Argentine government, or lost love?  Turns out it’s all of that, and a lot more, delicately and precisely realized by director Juan Jose Campanella, a veteran of many TV shows.    Campanella  knows exactly how to keep the seemingly disparate elements in balance. He gets excellent support from Felix Monti’s fluid images, and his own confident editing.

Most of the story takes place twenty years in the past, as Benjamin Esposito, a prosecutor and detective, does his best to corral a suspect for the outrageous murder we see in the opening.  As the investigation begins, he and his partner, an idiosyncratic drunk with a keen understanding of human nature, have little but their own ingenuity to rely on.  Esposito believes that eyes reveal secrets, but also lies.  In the course of their investigation the two cops blithely disregard the law.  But the law and those who enforce it are not above double dealing and deceit.  Trouble ensues.

The movie has a deliberate pace, but it’s not slow. It comes to a conventional and satisfying conclusion, although the means to getting there are entirely fresh.  When the initial dream sequence is revisited, much later, it takes on a whole new significance. A lost love, between two people of different socio economic backgrounds, is so skillfully woven into the mystery that it becomes just as vital as the darkest revelations regarding the crime.

Campanella, also the co-writer, drew the material from a novel of the same title.  The quirky forward momentum, which pauses for several amusing digressions, has the flavor of the printed page, probably because there’s so much dialogue. The payoffs, which come later, have as much to do with character as plot. Because the story moves back and forth, over twenty years, the physical presence of the actors graces it with a lived in quality that no amount of print could capture.

Esposito, played by Ricardo Darin is South Americas answer to Javier Bardem; rough hewn but soulful. You may remember him from two other terrific Argentine crime dramas, “Nine Queens,” and “The Aura.”  (Both are available on DVD and highly recommended.) The acting of the entire, large cast is so precisely tuned, that the smallest moments, amounting to little more than minute facial movements, speak volumes about the characters.  A sequence near the middle, involving an interrogation that goes from whispers to roars, is as hair raising as the grisly murder. Call it one more testament to the power of screen acting.

SPLICE

A widely distributed sci fi thriller with Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, “Splice” immediately gets your attention. With a cast of that caliber, you can’t imagine it in the same category as the cheesy commercial fodder that shows up on the Sci Fi channel disguised as movies.  But “Splice” works so hard to swim in the other direction it fails as compelling entertainment.

The set up is, well, let’s remain civil and call it time tested.  Two attractive scientists, who’ve already created a blob like life  in a test tube, long to move up the food chain by birthing a creature closer to their own image.  I’m not sure what they splice the human DNA to, or even why, but the computer graphics try to convince us they know what they’re doing.  And of course the endeavor is expressly forbidden by their employers; this time a French corporate she devil, because, if the credits are to be believed, the film is a French-Canadian co production.

The spawn of their efforts, which enters the world like a super chicken on Red Bull, eventually develops into an expressive female humanoid, but a humanoid with problems.  Fine so far, because we’ll accept the tired conventions to get the action going. But as the creature becomes an adolescent the script turns its attention on the troubles of its creators.  Most of the remaining running time is devoted to their personal problems and the resultant impact on their parenting.  We like Body and Polley, even when their neuroses get the better of them, but we’re more interested in what the creature is up to. And that, as it turns out, is not much.

There’s intelligence and taste in the production and the moment to moment direction. And the creature is physically convincing.  A few of its powers seem to develop more by the whim of  screenwriters than anything seeded in the plot line, which also takes its toll as the latter half whimpers on.

Earlier this year, George Romero’s dirt cheap “The Crazies” was rebooted with a healthy budget and a sharp cast headed by Timothy Olyphant and Rhada Mitchell. An effective shocker with a bit of an edge, it stated its case and the basic social implications, then got down to the business of thrills.  It was canny enough to sense the limitations of the idea and play to its strengths; the tried and true elimination game.

The problem with “Splice” is that the director, Vincenzo Natali, who made the smart and concise “Cube” back in 1997, never came up with a strong enough proxy to substitute for the elements we expect in the sci fi horror thrillers.   The trailer makes “Splice” look like a high voltage thrill ride; there are quick cuts to  arms stuck in lab equipment, a creature swooping down from nowhere, Polley and Brody frozen with fear.  But the actual movie is more dreary melodrama than dreamy nightmare.  You don’t fault it for its intelligence, or the convincing performances; you fault it for its arty pretensions.