Secrets of the Heart
Spain/France/Portugal 1997
Reviewed by Kim Newman
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Provincial Spain, the early 60s. Nine-year-old Javi stays in town with his brother Juan and unmarried aunts Rosa and María. Their widowed mother Teresa, meanwhile, lives on a farm with Ignacio, her brother-in-law. With his friend Carlos Javi loiters around an abandoned house, fantasising about crimes of passion that might have been committed there.
Over the Easter holidays, the brothers visit their mother. Javi is fascinated by a room forbidden to them where Antonio, his father, died in a shotgun mishap. Hearing sounds at night, Javi wakes Juan who tells him that the noise is of Teresa and Ignacio having sex. Back in town, Juan is dismissed from a school play after a fight with a boy who has informed on him for a mild sexual escapade with a local girl. Returning to the old house, Javi discovers that Ricardo, a mysterious man, has moved in. Aunt María resumes a love affair with Ricardo. Carlos' mother, after years of abuse by her husband, commits suicide. María tells Rosa that she is leaving with Ricardo; Rosa is upset when Javi asks why she is unmarried. On the night of the play, Javi locks up the informer who has taken Juan's role and persuades the director to let Juan go on. After the play, both brothers are expelled. Teresa and Ignacio marry. Javi realises that Antonio killed himself and Ignacio is his real father.
Review
For a film far more concerned with nuance and mood than plot, Secrets of the Heart is surprisingly packed with incident, all viewed through the eyes of the film's young hero, Javi. The child initially interprets the adult world, notably his many family troubles, in terms of mystery and melodrama, but by the end he realises that all the secrets withheld from him revolve around sexual activity (the magic word imparted by his brother is "chinga", translated here as "humping"). Charting Javi's learning curve, writer-director Montxo Armendáriz's film is necessarily full of repetition: scenes that at first seem to suggest a ghostly, magical world are later reprised in a more mundane manner - Javi's first peek at an abandoned house encourages wild speculations, the second discloses the presence of Ricardo, and the third, Ricardo and Javi's aunt María in noisy carnal embrace. The passion he imagined has become real, but few crimes are committed. This said, with the deaths of Javi's father Antonio and his friend Carlos' mother, Armendáriz hints that suicide might be the only course of action available to those trapped in intolerable marriages in this divorce-free Catholic backwater.
Armendáriz hasn't got much to add to such films as The Night of the Hunter (1955) and The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) which, like Secrets of the Heart, revolve around a wide-eyed, wayward child at a loose end. Admirably, Secrets of the Heart avoids melodrama: Javi's investigations never rebound, he's not placed in any danger and the revelation about his paternity is made with a minimum of pain. (Since his real father Ignacio is Antonio's brother, Javi is still the grandson of the stay-at-home patriarch, a shattered man following his son's suicide.) Ignacio is also seen to be a decent parent and considerate lover to Javi's mother, which introduces a note of fairy-tale harmony to Secrets of the Heart's happy ending.
Above all, Secrets of the Heart is a modest film of quiet stretches and small pleasures (a ford which Javi is afraid to cross is an especially intriguing location, seeming safe or perilous depending on the camera angle). Though sexual passions have riven the several families we see, Javi's only actual experience with girls suggests that the whole chinga business is something of a con. The girl who gets Javi's brother Juan in trouble takes Carlos' and Javi's money, then sits on a park bench and, firmly holding her skirt down, parts her knees three times without revealing anything. And Carlos' quiet sister, on whom Juan has a crush, is a saint-in-waiting cipher, with nothing to add to the stew of revelation, complicity and covenant that unites the film's main characters. Only the two aunts, the tipsy María and the seamstress Rosa, show Javi anything like their real feelings, having a blazing row when María announces she is leaving with the (married?) Ricardo and separately collapsing into tearful fugues when prodded by innocently asked but piercing questions from Javi.
Credits
- Director
- Montxo Armendáriz
- Producers
- Imanol Uribe
- Andrés Santana
- Screenplay
- Montxo Armendáriz
- Director of Photography
- Javier Aguirresarobe
- Editor
- Rori Sáinz de Rozas
- Art Director
- Félix Murcia
- Music
- Bingen Mendizabal
- ©Aiete Films, s.a./Ariane Films, s.a.
- Production Companies
- Aiete Films, S.A./Ariane Films, S.A. with the collaboration of Sogepaq/Canal+ France/ D.M.V.B. Films/Fabrica de Imagens/Eurimages/ Euskal Media/ICAA
- Associate Producers
- Thierry Forte
- José Mazeda
- Production Supervisor
- Andrés Santana
- Production Manager
- Puy Oria
- Unit Manager
- Marta Blasco
- Assistant Directors
- Antton Zabala
- Nekane Elizondo
- Script Supervisor
- Yuyi Beringola
- Casting
- Children:
- Carlos Salaberri
- Madrid Collaborators, Children:
- Luis Gimeno
- Eva Leira
- Menchu Rull
- Digital Special Effects
- Aurelio Sánchez
- Molinare
- Special Effects
- Ángel Alonso
- Félix RodrÍguez
- Studio Effects
- Jorge Rodríguez
- Reyes Abades Efectos Especiales
- Costumes
- Josune Lasa
- Wardrobe
- Pilar Tavera
- Collaborator:
- Teresa Mora
- Make-up
- Jorge Hernández
- Hair
- Fermín Galán
- Graphic Design/Titles
- Iñaki Cabodevilla
- Titles/Opticals
- Carlos J. Santos
- Chamber Orchestra
- Jesús Guridi
- Musicians
- Pianist:
- Arthur Goikoetxea
- Trumpet Player:
- Joseba Robles
- Flautist:
- Pedro Basterra
- Clarinet:
- Patxi Divar
- Violin:
- Katalin Bukataru
- Violoncello:
- Diego Gil
- Percussion:
- Félix Divar
- Orchestra Director
- Juanjo Mena Osterix
- Orchestrations
- Zuriñe Gerenebarrena
- Music Producers
- Helena González
- Fernando de la Casa
- Music Recordist/Mixer/ Percussion/Programming
- Fernando de la Casa
- Soundtrack
- "Muchacha Bonita"- Enrique Guzmán; "Lord You Made the Night Too Long" - Louis Armstrong; "Amar y vivir (Bolero)" - Antonio Machin; "Garbancito";
- "Dame Felicidad (Free Me)"; "Vamonos"
- Sound Director
- Gilles Ortion
- Recording Engineer
- Jesús los Arcos
- Re-recording Mixer
- Alfonso Pino
- Sound Editor
- Bela da Costa
- Animal Trainer
- Rafael Casado
- Cast
- Carmelo Gómez
- Ignacio, uncle
- Charo López
- Aunt María
- Sílvia Munt
- Teresa, mother
- Vicky Peña
- Aunt Rosa
- Andoni Erburu
- Javi
- Alvaro Nagore
- Juan
- Iñigo Garcés
- Carlos
- Joan Valles
- grandfather
- Joan Dalmau
- Benito
- Chete Lera
- Ricardo
- Manolo Monje
- Bautista
- José Maria Asin
- Alejandro
- Carlos Salaberri
- Bedel
- Iñaki Azcona
- Monaguillo
- Raquel Sanchís
- Carmen
- Goyo González
- school doctor
- Javier Fernández
- Jesús Torres
- Juan's friends
- Olaia Ezker
- Julia
- Eduardo Martínez
- village priest
- Laura Rico
- Pili
- José Manuel Acosta
- Gutiérrez
- José Angel Rebolledo
- Franciscan
- Eduardo Rubio
- little boy with dog
- Natalia García Sanz
- little girl
- Javier Indurain
- little boy in class
- Vicente Setoain
- accordion player at wedding
- Carlos Cirauqui
- Juan Barbería
- Javier Garzaron
- Fermín Ilundáin
- Ion Joven
- Ricardo Gil
- Alejandro Ibáñez
- Pablo Zarraluqui
- Manuel Montesino
- Roberto Rodríguez
- Cesar Ramos
- Marcos Oficialdegu
- Ignacio Arrieta
- Guillermo Ubago
- Javier Eraso
- David Ibiricu
- Fernando Zarraluqui
- Pablo Vidart
- Javier Villanueva
- children's theatre group
- Certificate
- tbc
- Distributor
- Metrodome Distribution Ltd
- tbc feet
- tbc minutes
- Dolby Digital
- In Colour
- Subtitles
- Spanish theatrical title
- Los secretos del corazón
- French theatrical title
- Secrets du cur