Secrets du coeur

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.

A beautiful film this little Spanish masterpiece from writer/director Montxo Armendàriz. He shows magnificent skill, subtlety and integrity when it comes to portraying the small town 1950's characters and their daily problems and pleasures. Seen through the eyes of young Javi, wonderfully played by Andoni Erburu who is in practically every scene.

A masterpiece this is. It is a great relief to know that films like this are made among the excessive violence of ultimately worthless films. I cannot discover any weaknesses in Secretos del Corazón. I simply love it. Credit to all who were involved in the creation of this beautiful work.

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.

This film is so sweet!

When I watched this film it really brought me back to my childhood times. How I tell lies to scare my little brother was almost identical to what Juan did to Javi. And how Javi believed them all!

Javi was so sweet, and the acting by the little kids were great. The way that Javi and Carlos were disappointed at not seeing the girl's private part was so greatly acted. In addition, the sadness when Carlos lost his mother was almost genuine.

It was so interesting to see the world through a child's eye. Everything became so simple and yet so mysterious. I liked this film a lot and I would recommend it to others.

Montxo Armendáriz, who has also filmed shorts such as Carboneros de Navarra (1981), Ikuska 12 (1981), Ikusmena (1980, and Barregarriaren Dantza (1979) not listed in IMDb, is essentially Navarran rather than Spanish in most of his filmography. This is clearly seen in Tasio (1984)(qv), the film which made him well known. and in "Secretos del Corazón".

`Secretos del Corazón', much the same as `Tasio', is an intimistic portrait of rural life in Navarra, though the focus of attention is totally different. Through the eyes of a ten year-old-boy, Javi (Andoni Erburu), we enter the mysterious world of growing up, in this case in the 1950s. The action moves from Pamplona, capital of Navarra, made famous by Hemingway unfortunately, to villages high up on the skirts of the Pyrenees. These villages, little more than an hour's car ride from where I am, offer delights to any traveller worth his salt. Ochagavía, situated high up the valley of the River Salazar, is formed mostly by noble late 17th/early 18th Century houses, with beautiful little streets and squares which are just delightful for having your tea and croissants any early-summer Sunday morning; Roncal, further to the east is famed for its cheese and sits astride the relaxing River Esca; further up the valley of Roncal you reach the delightful town of Isaba, picturesque, though tends to become a bit of a hustle and bustle at weekends. However, the spooky house is near Marcilla, at Barandalla, next to the sugar factory, way down to the south in the area known as the Ribera. How Armendáriz managed to get a train to pass just at the moments when the lads run pell-mell out of the gate, I do not know, as I have never seen a train pass through the derelict-looking railway station there.

The genius of Armendáriz is apparent here, even more than in `Tasio'. The story here is somewhat more tangible, and the many children in the film in general, and Andoni Erburu in particular, are extraordinary. Charo López is good; nice to see Silvia Munt again, so many years after `La Plaza del Diamante' (1981), but I was very attracted to Joan Valies playing the grandfather, sitting in his chair, who even had to have his hair combed for him, but whose mind still worked:

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There are some beautiful scenes of a spider's web, with the big spider in it, taken with the sun shining in through it. That web had to be moved from another house and placed there for the film! Such is the effort and detail Armendáriz is prepared to go to in order to reach his personal taste for perfection.

Yes, it is all there: the cows coming home in the evening to sleep at home in the stalls which form the ground floor of these houses in the sierra; the religious or just simply traditional customs of the villagers, revived in some cases for the making of the film; the mares coming home to foal; the beautiful golden browns of autumnal Pyrenees, beautifully filmed by Javier Aguirresarobe, and beautifully accompanied by Bingen Mendizábal's music. Talking about the music: there is a beautiful scene in which Javi is asking his old aunt, spinster, why she had never married and if it was because she did not want to `chingar'; she replied that she did not want to be bossed around by a man, and as she goes away to weep, Beethoven's Triple Concerto swells up on the old radio..... According to my `Diccionario María Moliner' the verb `chingar' has some uses in Costa Rica, usually meaning to play jokes, so can only deduce that its use here is a localism up in those Navarran villages. The film discloses some of that mysteriousness which when we grow up we conveniently forget about, a lot of silly childishness; however in this film the focus is very much a local one, very Spanish, such that maybe certain things might not be interpreted in the same way through other eyes - not that this would detract from the beauty of the film and understanding the empiric aspects.

Do not lose the scene where the two little kids pay three pesetas to see a girl's knickers: she sits on a bench in the park in front of them, shows a little above the knees and walks off. The two lads look at each other, confused and frustrated:

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