Geheimnisse des Herzens

This film by Montxo Armendariz did not get wide distribution in the US. It certainly is a much better film than recent arrivals from Europe and it deserved to have been seen by a wider audience.

This is a world seen by the eyes of Javi, who cannot comprehend the many secrets the adults in the family hide from him and the older brother. Everything that on the surface seems to be one way, mean something entirely different when kept away from the inquisitive mind of the young boy. He senses the dishonesty behind all the adults who cannot bring themselves to tell the truth to the boy, even though he is on the right track.

The young actor Andoni Erburu is the best thing going throughout the film. He has a very expressive face, with eyes that sparkle and tell a lot of what's going on in his mind. All the adults lie to him about the real tragedy around him. They all conspire in hiding from the children what they only can guess.

The cast is well balanced. Carmelo Lopez is only seen on a few scenes, even though he's one of the pivotal figures in this story. In general all the actors are very subdued in playing their parts, obviously under the tight rein of Mr. Armendariz, who up to now has made films that are utterly uncommercial, at least, the type to attract a wider audience, and he proves with this film that he can make them as well as some of the other good directors from Spain. Let's hope he leaves the themes of the Civil War behind and start telling us other "secrets" that have the haunting qualities of this film.

Some other reviewers have claimed this movie to be uneventful - and they are right. I was not yet bored, but almost on the brink of it. What struck me most is the absence of any sort of dramatic and/or emotional climax. There is no final highlight, no real final denouement. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but here it was. Thus I cannot give the movie more than a 7, although it has lots of positive aspects to it. Let us look at them now.

Secrets of the Heart is a movie about individuals, about their daily struggles to survive and to find happiness, about their frailties and their sins. The two major themes I have detected are secrets and death, melted together in the social stratum of a lower class communal family in Spain in the early 1960s. The movie's protagonist is young Javi, a little boy. We see the world through his eyes mainly, in a naive and unaffected manner.

The theme of death is the strongest, very much linked to the theme of secrets. The death of Javi's father and the secrets his mother wants to hide from him and his brother represent the story's mysterious edge. Death and mysteries come up again when Javi and his friend Carlos want to find out about the secrets of a decayed mansion. Also the spider Javi observes in his uncle's cowshed symbolizes death, as we see it killing flies and other insects various times. So the story has indeed the capacity to provide some sort of exciting developments. It just does not fully use this capacity, and that is a pity.

The story rather focuses on a family portrayal. We get an insight look into the bleak and doleful existence of Javi's two aunts with all their imperfections and vices. The story of Javi's brother, his mother and his grandfather are presented similarly - subtle and somehow uneventful. Then again it is Javi's story, of how he grows up, how he influences and is influenced in return by the world and the individuals around him. He undergoes rites of passage and makes the story also a quest of finding out the truths about all the secrets and mysteries within his family in particular and of the world in general.

The story has its charm, but it did not exploit its full potential. It can be summarized as an authentic socio-cultural portrayal of family life, and as such it needs to be praised. However, there are too many subtle and uneventful sequences. I never felt the sort of emotional and moral attachment I normally expect from valuable movies dealing with sincere and genuine themes of life. Thus I was a bit disappointed. Those who like these sorts of cultural depictions into which you can interpret a lot and never become tired of finding new aspects by reflecting on the events will probably like it. I would have preferred some sort of real message running through the plot, some sort of dramatic climax or at least a higher pace in terms of developments.

Apart from an excellent job of acting by the child who plays the lead, there really isn't anything about this picture that makes it stand out in my mind. Having just seen it a couple days ago, it SHOULD be much clearer in my mind. I think it's because there's not much new or especially memorable here. About the only thing that stands out is this Spanish-language movie is the children's great fascination with "humping" (a word used at least a dozen times in the movie) and in this sense, it reminds me of the movie BUTTERFLY (though Butterfly is a better film). There's not a whole lot more to say other than the ordinariness made me wonder why all the positive reviews--especially since there are certainly better coming of age films. It's not like this is a bad film--just average in most respects.

"Secretos del Corazón", is a sensitive, delicate, touching film made by one of the most talented Spanish filmmakers, the Basque Montxo Armendáriz. Perhaps the most impressive thing about it is how shrewdly Armendáriz captures the web of guilt, fear and repression of 1960s Spain, when the omnipresence of ponderous Catholic rituals and rigid moral codes translated the oppression of Franco's dictatorship to perfection.

We follow 9-year-old Javi (Andoni Erburu), an intelligent, naive, over-protected, sensitive kid learning to deal with the harsh process of growing up and overcoming his many fears (of crossing a stream, of an old empty house, of ghosts, of big bullies in school, of the dark, of school punishment, of losing his mother's love), discovering "shocking" family secrets and the raw truths of life (sex, death, violence, lies), facing the bewilderment of asking something to adults and not having honest answers back, or not being able to understand them. If you've been raised in a Latin Catholic country, you can relate even more closely to "Secretos del Corazón": a sort of education that -- as Javi's wise grandfather says -- never teaches children anything about the really important facts of life.

Everything in "Secreto" is skilfully accomplished: the cast is uniformly inspired, with Charo López as the liberal-minded aunt Maria and Joan Vallés as the stern grandfather especially fine. The costumes and set design take you right back to 1960s Spain, the plot unravels quietly and harmoniously so that when the big "revelation" comes it doesn't seem contrived. But above all, the triumph belongs to director Armendáriz's enormous sensibility and his extraordinary child actor Andoni Erburu, with his sad Pierrot face (somewhat reminiscent of Isabelle Adjani's), his toothy shyness, big curious eyes and emotional transparency that covers a large spectrum, but is never "cute" or maudlin -- it's a wonderful, natural, unforgettable performance, with a kind of innocence that's so hard to find today it drives you right back to another era (Erburu is from a rural Basque background), and can only be compared to Ana Torrent's fabulous performances in the 1970s for Saura and Erice. He deservedly won a collection of awards with this role, including the Goya and the Spanish Acting Guild Award for Best Newcomer.

I liked this film so much I asked a friend to buy the DVD in Spain (unfortunately no one could find it in New York - hello DVD stores! - this was an Academy Award nominee for best foreign film!), so I can watch it again from time to time. If you like a well-told story sensitively directed and acted, and aren't frightened by moderato pace, you'll find "Secretos del Corazón" richly rewarding. It makes, with Carlos Saura's haunting "Cría Cuervos" and Victor Erice's spell-binding "El Espíritu de la Colmena", an incomparable triptych of studies on childhood, loss of innocence, sexual repression and moral/religious/political oppression under Franco's Spain. Don't miss it.

"Secrets of the Heart" is a relatively uneventful but often poignant Spanish coming-of-age/slice-of-life flick about a boy's learning about life....period. If that sounds dull it's probably is because it is dull. This tedious film features a cute kid with a whole lot of questions about everything which may be of interest to those who were never a boy. Like maybe females. Having been a boy, this film showed me nothing new. Been there, done that. Better films are easy to find. (C+)