At 9 pm over the past five nights I have enjoyed watching a new ITV serial drama called Injustice and yesterday afternoon I watched the Oscar best foreign language award winning Argentinean film, Esecreto de sus ojos (The Secret in Their eyes) based on the novel by Eduardo Sacheri’s - Le pregunto de sus Ojos (The Question in Their eyes) but which could just as comfortably have been called Justice.
Fifty years ago while studying Criminology as part of a Diploma and Public Administration course at Oxford University I read an essay by John Rawls then professor of Philosophy at Harvard University headed Justice as Fairness and this has governed my thinking about the subject since, although I accept that attempting to define what is fair and not fair is just as difficult as attempting to talk of Justice only in term of the Judicial and Legal system within a national State.
I had no awareness beforehand of just how good the film is and just as Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, one of nine of his novels I have in my library, is the benchmark literary work on the subject, I have elevated this film to the top of my film list because of its depth.
Benjamin Espósito is a retired Federal crime investigator in the capital of Argentina who on retirement decides to write in novel form a case that dominated and changed his life over 25 years previously and he calls at the office of his former boss and now a Judge, Irene Menéndez-Hastings, to tell of his intentions.
In 1974 Espósito was appointed to investigate the rape and murder of a beautiful young woman in her own bedroom and had to advise her husband who works at a Bank what has happened and who it needs to be stressed is never a suspect for the crime. Espósito is as much emotionally affected by the husband’s distress and ongoing love as he is by the rape and murder. Ricardo Morales is the husband is played by one of several actors in this film who can communicate without words.
Espósito works closely with a married alcoholic colleague, Pablo Sandoval, rescuing him from bar bawls, paying off his bar bills and smoothing things with the man’s long suffering wife. They have made little progress when a rival in the agency announces he has caught the perpetrators, two foreign workers on a building site in the immediate area of the crime. Espósito visits the accused and finds that a confession was beaten out of them with no other evidence. The men are released and he attacks the colleague for his behaviour in the court buildings. Having promised the husband that he would find the killer they have a discussion about justice, with the husband saying he is glad there is no death penalty and wants the man to serve a long prison sentence so he can contemplate what he has done and suffer. Espósito says the man will serve life. This is the crucial scene in the film in terms of the issue of justice as retribution.
Without evidence he studies the photos of the young woman taken from her home and notices that in several pictures there is a young man who is always looking longingly at the victim and after talk with the husband learns that this was a former school and college friend from the home town. Thus we have the significance of the film title that our eyes reveal what is inside of us including that we wish to keep secret.
The investigators find that the young man is not living at home and there is no record of his present whereabouts. Benjamin believes he will have kept in contact with his mother by letter and persuades his colleague, Pablo Sandoval, to accompany him to the home town of Chivilcoy where after waiting for the mother to leave her home he breaks into the property. He is spooked when his colleague who is supposed to keep look out comes in and they both are nearly caught as the woman returns and her dog bites him in the leg as they beat a quick retreat. Benjamin has mixed feelings when he learns that his colleague has not only removed the letters but entered a local store to buy a bottle of whisky after saying he had to go for a pee. The consequence is that their car is identified after the woman reports the crime and no doubt warns her son of the intrusion. The two men narrowly escape discipline but the judge overseeing the investigation and who closes the case.
A year after this Benjamin finds grieving widower, Morales, spending every evening after work at the bank keeping watch at the city railway stations in the hope of catching sight of the man he has been told is the likely killer of his wife. Benjamin is so moved by the man’s devotion that he persuades his boss Irene to re-open the case by losing the closure papers of her superior. The two have an attraction but because she comes from a wealthy family, was educated at Harvard as is engaged to a man of similar wealth and society to her family the feelings are restricted to how they look at year other.
Benjamin and Pablo go over the information available and it is Pablo with the help of a drinking companion who spots that the names in the letters refer to players for a particular football team. Pablo makes the point that most men have passions which do not change during their lifetime particularly the football club they support, They begin to attend home games of the club of the players mentioned in the letters and during their fourth visit just when Benjamin is deciding that finding someone in such a large gathering is impossible, the suspect is seen and after a chase is apprehended and taken for questioning. He is broken into an admission by Irene who suggests that his size and demeanour all indicate that he could not be the killer but when she suggests that he does not possess the manhood to have caused the internal injuries noted to the victim he reveals his appendage and hits the accuser. He is tried and convicted and sentenced to life. There is a moving scene when Benjamin tells Morales the news of the arrest at a railway station where he has continued to keep watch. Morales says he is indebted for the culprit being caught.
A year later the husband sees the killer on television as part of a Presidential security detail and Irene and Benjamin investigate what happened. They discover that their colleague with whom Benjamin clashed over the false confession belonged to a political protection security service that was using the killer for break-ins and other illegal work. They are told they can do nothing about the position.
After the meeting the killer comes into their lift and brandishes a weapon. A short time later Benjamin is called to a bar where his friend and colleague Sandoval has been involved in a brawl with the local police called. Espósito smoothes the way once more and take the man home to sober up and then goes for the man’s wife. When they return they find Pablo in a pool of blood having been machined gunned to death under the mistaken impression he was Benjamin. Benjamin notes at the scene that the photos of him in the room have been turned down, evidence that his friend realised the situation and gave his life to protect his friend, Benjamin is forced to leave the capital because once the mistake became known, and the killer Gomez would come after him again.
Twenty five years pass by and after a failed marriage and the formal end of his occupational working life he returns to the capital, still haunted by what happened and with continuing feelings of guilt about the sacrifice of his friend he decides to begin the writing of a novel. This is only half the story of the film, and in once sense as I shall reveal a third in terms of important subjects.
During those two years of the murder investigation and the decision to flee to the provinces he had developed a love for Irene, his boss but because of her engagement, her wealth and social status he made no move despite indications that she reciprocated his feelings and wanted him to take the initiative. That is until the day of the murder of their colleague when they had arranged to meet in secret. Such clashes of interests are true to life and it is a measure of the authenticity of the work and in life that such individuals will do what is right, fair, just in terms of their occupation and the welfare of others, sacrificing their own immediate happiness in doing so.
We witness the various attempts of Benjamin to start his novel, hand written in notebook, but each time he destroys the work and one recurring scene is the departure from the capital seen off by Irene, both broken hearted. Twenty five years later as she reads the first part of the novel she asks why did he not take her with him? They have both led full lives but lives where something was missing, the love that might have been which embraces sexual passion and the intimacy of both able to be their true selves and that depth of communication which needs no words. I once went out for an evening mean with three colleagues and one commented that a nearby table an obviously married couple had sat through the meal without speaking to each other. The colleague expressed sadness at this and indeed such silence can reveal there is nothing more to say to each other that has meaning to them or that a gulf has arisen which they do not know how to bridge or are unable to bridge because they have either matured different or just changed in different ways from each other. However as I commented it can also signal a depth of understanding and comfortableness in the relationship which does not need small talk and gossip to sustain.
As part of his need to exorcise the ghosts of the past he seeks out the whereabouts of Morales and finds that he has moved to the countryside in an isolated property commuting each day to a bank where he has gained promotion. He is unmarried and claims to have put the past behind him and recommends that Benjamin does the same. When Benjamin admits that he is haunted by the failure to put Gomez away and by the death of his colleague Gomez admits that after the death he had staked out Gomez knowing that one day he would make a further attempt on the life of the man who had done his best to achieve justice for the murdered wife. He had killed him and disposed of the body, He insists that Benjamin leaves and that the two have no further contact.
He had got on with his life and Benjamin should do the same.
Benjamin finds this difficult to accept as it undermines he belief in the uniqueness of the man’s love and devotion to his wife, although as will be noted in the TV series drama Injustice, the killing of someone can lead to begging an effective new chapter although the killing will haunt as much as the original cause, unless the killing is undertaken officially be the State or distance can be put between the means and the end. In this instance Benjamin is sufficiently unconvinced that he returns to the property and keeps watch after Morales has returned home from his work at the bank.
Morales come outside the house with some bread and a drink and goes to an outhouse. Benjamin investigates further and finds that the man had indeed captured Gomez but has imprisoned him. When Gomez sees Benjamin he pleads that he should tell Morales to talk to him. Morales maintains his silence of twenty five years and Benjamin walks away but before leaving Morales says that he had said he owed Morales for capturing the man and he had kept their word that the killer would serve life in torment.
Benjamin is emotionally and psychologically freed and able to visit the grave of Pablo for the first time. He completes the novel and as at the beginning of the film we see him entering the office of Irene and they look into each other’s eyes. She says it will be complicated and he agrees. She tells him to close the door behind him. Previously she has always kept the door open. Justice as fairness had been served and rewarded. The film is in Spanish with sub titles but the acting is such that at times the understanding of the language is not necessary to appreciate the greatness of this film.
There are several similarities between the film and the five episodes drama Injustice which proved to be much better than expected and a good twist which I suspect few if anyone will have predicted. Both films could be titled Justice as retribution.
James Purefoy plays a barrister, Travers, who has moved to Tractor Boys country (East Anglia) with his wife and daughter, following a breakdown after discovering that a man who he defended admits that he did kill the teenage boy for which he has been acquitted. Travers always tells instructing solicitors before taking a case that he must believe in the innocence of his clients and that he will walk away from the case if at anytime he determines this is not so. He is approached by solicitor, against her better judgement, to represent her client accused of murder and to appear at the Central Criminal Court in London. Travers explains that he no longer takes murder cases for which he had previously had a national reputation. She explains who her client is and that he mentioned the barrister’s wife. Two and more decades before he and the accused played by former Inspector Lynley, Nathaniel Parker, were best friends at Oxford. Parker was going out with a fellow student played by the gorgeous Dervia Kirwan (Ballykissangel) who has married Purefoy and they have become estranged from Parker whose heart had been broken. He had married someone else, divorced and remarried and commenced an affair with a secretarial assistant at the International Oil firm for which Parker is a legal adviser. The assistant is half his age and they meet up for passionate sessions in central London Hotels.
On the occasion of the murder she requests that he goes out and gets her some chips with curry sauce and when he returns he finds her murdered in the hotel room. His DNA is on the stockings around her neck. Unbeknown to him the girl had a conviction for attempted blackmail and the police believe that she threatened to tell his wife and he had killed her in a moment of anger. The barrister undertakes inquiries normally carried out by the solicitor and a feature of both programmes is that key characters behave unconventionally and sometimes breaking the rules of their profession and even the law.
He seeks contact with the former boyfriend of the murdered girl and finds from the person house sharing that the man is an investigative journalist making a visit to Africa. He is unable to contact but on his return the young man gets in touch and reveals that he had employed the young woman to try and find out if the oil firm is the company which is dumping disguised oil waste in the African country causing many civilian death. The police had found a name and three dates on the mobile phone of the girl and at the trial it emerges the name is that of a ship and the dates is when it unloaded the dangerous oil waste in the unnamed African country. Before the trial there is a scene in which the accused is interviewed by senior members of the company who offer full support as long as he keeps their activities out of the court case and publicity.
A key part of the defence is that the accused had with him his lap top which contained confidential information about company business and this had disappeared during his absence from the room. When the journalist gives evidence the prosecution case falls apart because he had argued that there was no other possible explanation for the cause of the girl’s death.
During the weeks before the trial Travers and an assistant had studied all the available CCTV footage which included a man throwing something into the river Thames a short distance away from the hotel. It is only after the trial when the acquitted man is talking to his wife and the media about the fact he and the barrister were at Oxford together and played cricket, mentioning that he was a left handed bowler that the barrister remembers that the man on the CCTV was throwing something with his left arm. There is also the question of timing with a gap of 10 to 15 minutes between the time that the accused was seen on CCTV leaving the Take Away shop and asking a man in a lift for the time and he replies 8.40. The shop is only some five six minutes away from the Hotel a missing period of 10 to 15 minutes. The accused had suggested that the man in the lift had got the time wrong but this is shot down by the prosecution because the man was a salesman for a well known international watchmaker. The barrister confronts the former accused in a car park saying that he got the lap top after the area had been dredged and that on the computer there was child pornography. The girl had persuaded him to go out so she could check the lap top for information, having found out the password (we are not told how) and had found the photos and on his return she had said she proposed to inform his employers and police. He had planted the formation about the name of ship and the dates on her mobile phone to implicate his employers. He had then got rid of the lap top and made a point of drawing attention to his return at the desk and by asking the time of the man in the lift. The barrister had attempted to get the ex wife to give her reasons for divorcing but she had refused but made the comment that she had been unable to meet her husband’s needs.
The murderer does not deny the crime but argues that there are insufficient grounds to justify a retrial and while he could be reported for the child abuse images, he would argue that the images had been added to machine by someone else. The barrister then pulls a gun and kills his former friend. The admission of guilt and the “judicial” killing are a surprise given the rest of the story. We the audience know that this is not the first time the barrister has taken the law into his own hands out of retribution
Earlier in the series we are shown the barrister seeing the man whose admission of guilt led to his break down leaving the local railway station at the same time and getting onto a bus. Travers hires a taxi and follows the man to a bus stop close to a lane leading to an isolated farm building. The man was subsequently found shot and we know from other scenes that it is the barrister who executes the man despite pleas for mercy. We also know that barrister had been haunted by the teenage boy who had been murdered by the man who had been found not guilty because of the barrister‘s skill.
We had also witnessed the barrister destroying the prosecution case at a local crown court by being able to show that the police officer had manufactured evidence. The accused was a criminal who had several convictions as well as several unproven crimes. The detective senior partner of the two officers left his colleague to carry the can. The senior detective is assigned to solve the murder of the man in isolated farm dwelling. We learn that the man was given the ramshackle accommodation in return for doing jobs on the farm. He is identified as a former animal welfare rights activist who was acquitted for murder. The officer visits Travers, ostensibly to find out about he victim. However he has his suspicions which appear to be confirmed when he finds Travers owns a car of the type whose tracks have been found close in lane from the bus stop before the gated field to the home of the victim. The Detective waits one day until the barrister’s wife leaves the house to take an earth sample from the tyres but the analyst says that while it could have been in the lane contamination makes the sample inconclusive as evidence.
Another inquiry concerns the murder weapon which the analyst says had a particular mark similar to that in two other crimes which suggests the same gun maker. The detective follows up one the crimes visiting a convicted murderer in a young offender’s institution due to move to an adult prison shortly on his 18th birthday. The boy had been bullied at school and shot and killed the bully claiming to have found the gun in a skip. The detective demands to know the supplier of the weapon and when the boy refuses he warns that he will arrange for him to move to a hard prison and to be used by the men. The boy is terrified of what could happen if the detective carries out the threat but also of his fate if the source for the gun is revealed. The boy gives on the basis that the gun provider will not be told. The gun maker is arrested and turns out to be the boyfriend of the boy’s mother. He is forced to admit to making a gun available recently and in return for help at his trial gives the name. The purchaser however explain that it was a commission and that he never saw the individual as it was raining and dark and when he received the money at an agreed place he left the gun which was then taken by the person, he assumed, who had contacted him. The detective then visits this man at his home and persuades him to return to the police station and amend his statement identifying Travers as the purchaser.
The wife of the barrister has a successful career as a publisher but gave it up after her husband’s breakdown and his decision to work on non murder cases in the provinces. She has been conducting a class on English Literature at the young offender’s institution and the only individual attending who shows genuine interest and understanding is the young bullied murderer. He gives her the first part of a novel which impresses her greatly which she shows to her former employer who is also impressed but wants her to return to work for him. He wants to know the background of the boy and unable to get the information officially she works out where he lived and eventually makes contact with his mother. The mother is only interested in the potential of getting money. When the boy commits suicide the barrister’s wife blames herself and longs to get away back to her old life. In fact the detective had told his mother’s lover who tells the boy’s mother and who berates her son for the betrayal, and it is this that drives the boy to commit suicide out of fear of the worse to come his way.
The detective is prepared to say and do anything to gain the conviction of anyone he believes guilty. He had become aggressive, prone to explosive bursts of temper and abusive towards his wife and indifferent to her problems with a comparatively new baby. When she walks out of a store with an inexpensive trinket and as arrested her husbanded is more concerned about the impact on his reputation than the emotional state of mind of his wife. He hits her and walks out of the home admitting the following morning that he had spent the night with someone picked up. He is then contrite and returns home with flowers saying that all will be well as he will gain a prosecution. Which will establish him further in his career? They will go out and celebrate in the evening. When he returns later she is packed up ready to leave and in the resulting commotion he falls down stairs and dies.
Following the disgrace and suspension of his partner at the commencement of the series, The Detective is told to take on a young intelligent new detective who happens also to be black. The young detective is horrified by the behaviour of the senior man and reports him to his superior who first tells the recruit that he approves of the senior detective because he gets results and then only by learning from the man will be making up for having come behind his back and telling tales.
When the detectives dies the senior officer is concerned because the man had been about to solve the latest murder and he asks the assistant to give him the notes but there are none. He insists the detective goes through the files to see if there is any clue to what had been found. The only thing he discovers is the folded photo of the barrister used to guide the man who had arranged the gun purchaser to change his evidence.
Traver’s wife is concerned by his decision to take on the case of her former boyfriend fearing it will lead to another breakdown. He repeatedly says there is no going back. His sister comments that the change has come about because of the death of man who was guilty of the murder of teenage boy and that had she known it would have had such a good effect she would have killed the man herself. This leads his wife to speculate to herself about her husband‘s role in the death and visits where the man was found murdered. She then pleads with him to leave the area and go back to London, something he had already decided to do. At the conclusion of the final episode she says to her husband in a questioning way, we are going to be alright, and he reassures her.
There are four clues that this is only the first series of one or more. I have already mentioned the discovery of the folded photo and the admission of the new recruit that he had changed his mind about the dead detective and his methods.
The barrister and his wife have a daughter who begins studies at a university in London using the parental London home which they have retained. At one point the home is broken into and the assumption made that this was the oil firm trying to find out how much the barrister knew of their dealings. The barrister works out that the break was undertaken by his client in order to enhance the cover story that the girl has been murdered by someone on behalf of his employers. There is more to come regarding the daughter.
In the first case when the barrister gets the case dismissed because of the police fabrication of evidence, the prosecuting Counsel is a long term adversary who holds the barrister in contempt because of his alleged values. The same Counsel is the prosecutor in the trial of the friend from university days. There is newspaper reference to the disappearance of the released accused and other references which suggest this aspect of the story and the rivalry between the two legal men is not over
The final clue comes at the end when he is seen taking on another case and warning the client that he will only take cases he believes in and that he will walk away if he finds they are not innocent of the committed crime. There is something sinister and threatening in the statement suggesting more is to come
On Saturday night I watched the first episode of new mega series about King Arthur, Merlin Camelot and all that which can be said to be a cross between Spartacus Blood and Sand and the Game of Thrones. Mr Purefoy is also a member of the cast.
Fifty years ago while studying Criminology as part of a Diploma and Public Administration course at Oxford University I read an essay by John Rawls then professor of Philosophy at Harvard University headed Justice as Fairness and this has governed my thinking about the subject since, although I accept that attempting to define what is fair and not fair is just as difficult as attempting to talk of Justice only in term of the Judicial and Legal system within a national State.
I had no awareness beforehand of just how good the film is and just as Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, one of nine of his novels I have in my library, is the benchmark literary work on the subject, I have elevated this film to the top of my film list because of its depth.
Benjamin Espósito is a retired Federal crime investigator in the capital of Argentina who on retirement decides to write in novel form a case that dominated and changed his life over 25 years previously and he calls at the office of his former boss and now a Judge, Irene Menéndez-Hastings, to tell of his intentions.
In 1974 Espósito was appointed to investigate the rape and murder of a beautiful young woman in her own bedroom and had to advise her husband who works at a Bank what has happened and who it needs to be stressed is never a suspect for the crime. Espósito is as much emotionally affected by the husband’s distress and ongoing love as he is by the rape and murder. Ricardo Morales is the husband is played by one of several actors in this film who can communicate without words.
Espósito works closely with a married alcoholic colleague, Pablo Sandoval, rescuing him from bar bawls, paying off his bar bills and smoothing things with the man’s long suffering wife. They have made little progress when a rival in the agency announces he has caught the perpetrators, two foreign workers on a building site in the immediate area of the crime. Espósito visits the accused and finds that a confession was beaten out of them with no other evidence. The men are released and he attacks the colleague for his behaviour in the court buildings. Having promised the husband that he would find the killer they have a discussion about justice, with the husband saying he is glad there is no death penalty and wants the man to serve a long prison sentence so he can contemplate what he has done and suffer. Espósito says the man will serve life. This is the crucial scene in the film in terms of the issue of justice as retribution.
Without evidence he studies the photos of the young woman taken from her home and notices that in several pictures there is a young man who is always looking longingly at the victim and after talk with the husband learns that this was a former school and college friend from the home town. Thus we have the significance of the film title that our eyes reveal what is inside of us including that we wish to keep secret.
The investigators find that the young man is not living at home and there is no record of his present whereabouts. Benjamin believes he will have kept in contact with his mother by letter and persuades his colleague, Pablo Sandoval, to accompany him to the home town of Chivilcoy where after waiting for the mother to leave her home he breaks into the property. He is spooked when his colleague who is supposed to keep look out comes in and they both are nearly caught as the woman returns and her dog bites him in the leg as they beat a quick retreat. Benjamin has mixed feelings when he learns that his colleague has not only removed the letters but entered a local store to buy a bottle of whisky after saying he had to go for a pee. The consequence is that their car is identified after the woman reports the crime and no doubt warns her son of the intrusion. The two men narrowly escape discipline but the judge overseeing the investigation and who closes the case.
A year after this Benjamin finds grieving widower, Morales, spending every evening after work at the bank keeping watch at the city railway stations in the hope of catching sight of the man he has been told is the likely killer of his wife. Benjamin is so moved by the man’s devotion that he persuades his boss Irene to re-open the case by losing the closure papers of her superior. The two have an attraction but because she comes from a wealthy family, was educated at Harvard as is engaged to a man of similar wealth and society to her family the feelings are restricted to how they look at year other.
Benjamin and Pablo go over the information available and it is Pablo with the help of a drinking companion who spots that the names in the letters refer to players for a particular football team. Pablo makes the point that most men have passions which do not change during their lifetime particularly the football club they support, They begin to attend home games of the club of the players mentioned in the letters and during their fourth visit just when Benjamin is deciding that finding someone in such a large gathering is impossible, the suspect is seen and after a chase is apprehended and taken for questioning. He is broken into an admission by Irene who suggests that his size and demeanour all indicate that he could not be the killer but when she suggests that he does not possess the manhood to have caused the internal injuries noted to the victim he reveals his appendage and hits the accuser. He is tried and convicted and sentenced to life. There is a moving scene when Benjamin tells Morales the news of the arrest at a railway station where he has continued to keep watch. Morales says he is indebted for the culprit being caught.
A year later the husband sees the killer on television as part of a Presidential security detail and Irene and Benjamin investigate what happened. They discover that their colleague with whom Benjamin clashed over the false confession belonged to a political protection security service that was using the killer for break-ins and other illegal work. They are told they can do nothing about the position.
After the meeting the killer comes into their lift and brandishes a weapon. A short time later Benjamin is called to a bar where his friend and colleague Sandoval has been involved in a brawl with the local police called. Espósito smoothes the way once more and take the man home to sober up and then goes for the man’s wife. When they return they find Pablo in a pool of blood having been machined gunned to death under the mistaken impression he was Benjamin. Benjamin notes at the scene that the photos of him in the room have been turned down, evidence that his friend realised the situation and gave his life to protect his friend, Benjamin is forced to leave the capital because once the mistake became known, and the killer Gomez would come after him again.
Twenty five years pass by and after a failed marriage and the formal end of his occupational working life he returns to the capital, still haunted by what happened and with continuing feelings of guilt about the sacrifice of his friend he decides to begin the writing of a novel. This is only half the story of the film, and in once sense as I shall reveal a third in terms of important subjects.
During those two years of the murder investigation and the decision to flee to the provinces he had developed a love for Irene, his boss but because of her engagement, her wealth and social status he made no move despite indications that she reciprocated his feelings and wanted him to take the initiative. That is until the day of the murder of their colleague when they had arranged to meet in secret. Such clashes of interests are true to life and it is a measure of the authenticity of the work and in life that such individuals will do what is right, fair, just in terms of their occupation and the welfare of others, sacrificing their own immediate happiness in doing so.
We witness the various attempts of Benjamin to start his novel, hand written in notebook, but each time he destroys the work and one recurring scene is the departure from the capital seen off by Irene, both broken hearted. Twenty five years later as she reads the first part of the novel she asks why did he not take her with him? They have both led full lives but lives where something was missing, the love that might have been which embraces sexual passion and the intimacy of both able to be their true selves and that depth of communication which needs no words. I once went out for an evening mean with three colleagues and one commented that a nearby table an obviously married couple had sat through the meal without speaking to each other. The colleague expressed sadness at this and indeed such silence can reveal there is nothing more to say to each other that has meaning to them or that a gulf has arisen which they do not know how to bridge or are unable to bridge because they have either matured different or just changed in different ways from each other. However as I commented it can also signal a depth of understanding and comfortableness in the relationship which does not need small talk and gossip to sustain.
As part of his need to exorcise the ghosts of the past he seeks out the whereabouts of Morales and finds that he has moved to the countryside in an isolated property commuting each day to a bank where he has gained promotion. He is unmarried and claims to have put the past behind him and recommends that Benjamin does the same. When Benjamin admits that he is haunted by the failure to put Gomez away and by the death of his colleague Gomez admits that after the death he had staked out Gomez knowing that one day he would make a further attempt on the life of the man who had done his best to achieve justice for the murdered wife. He had killed him and disposed of the body, He insists that Benjamin leaves and that the two have no further contact.
He had got on with his life and Benjamin should do the same.
Benjamin finds this difficult to accept as it undermines he belief in the uniqueness of the man’s love and devotion to his wife, although as will be noted in the TV series drama Injustice, the killing of someone can lead to begging an effective new chapter although the killing will haunt as much as the original cause, unless the killing is undertaken officially be the State or distance can be put between the means and the end. In this instance Benjamin is sufficiently unconvinced that he returns to the property and keeps watch after Morales has returned home from his work at the bank.
Morales come outside the house with some bread and a drink and goes to an outhouse. Benjamin investigates further and finds that the man had indeed captured Gomez but has imprisoned him. When Gomez sees Benjamin he pleads that he should tell Morales to talk to him. Morales maintains his silence of twenty five years and Benjamin walks away but before leaving Morales says that he had said he owed Morales for capturing the man and he had kept their word that the killer would serve life in torment.
Benjamin is emotionally and psychologically freed and able to visit the grave of Pablo for the first time. He completes the novel and as at the beginning of the film we see him entering the office of Irene and they look into each other’s eyes. She says it will be complicated and he agrees. She tells him to close the door behind him. Previously she has always kept the door open. Justice as fairness had been served and rewarded. The film is in Spanish with sub titles but the acting is such that at times the understanding of the language is not necessary to appreciate the greatness of this film.
There are several similarities between the film and the five episodes drama Injustice which proved to be much better than expected and a good twist which I suspect few if anyone will have predicted. Both films could be titled Justice as retribution.
James Purefoy plays a barrister, Travers, who has moved to Tractor Boys country (East Anglia) with his wife and daughter, following a breakdown after discovering that a man who he defended admits that he did kill the teenage boy for which he has been acquitted. Travers always tells instructing solicitors before taking a case that he must believe in the innocence of his clients and that he will walk away from the case if at anytime he determines this is not so. He is approached by solicitor, against her better judgement, to represent her client accused of murder and to appear at the Central Criminal Court in London. Travers explains that he no longer takes murder cases for which he had previously had a national reputation. She explains who her client is and that he mentioned the barrister’s wife. Two and more decades before he and the accused played by former Inspector Lynley, Nathaniel Parker, were best friends at Oxford. Parker was going out with a fellow student played by the gorgeous Dervia Kirwan (Ballykissangel) who has married Purefoy and they have become estranged from Parker whose heart had been broken. He had married someone else, divorced and remarried and commenced an affair with a secretarial assistant at the International Oil firm for which Parker is a legal adviser. The assistant is half his age and they meet up for passionate sessions in central London Hotels.
On the occasion of the murder she requests that he goes out and gets her some chips with curry sauce and when he returns he finds her murdered in the hotel room. His DNA is on the stockings around her neck. Unbeknown to him the girl had a conviction for attempted blackmail and the police believe that she threatened to tell his wife and he had killed her in a moment of anger. The barrister undertakes inquiries normally carried out by the solicitor and a feature of both programmes is that key characters behave unconventionally and sometimes breaking the rules of their profession and even the law.
He seeks contact with the former boyfriend of the murdered girl and finds from the person house sharing that the man is an investigative journalist making a visit to Africa. He is unable to contact but on his return the young man gets in touch and reveals that he had employed the young woman to try and find out if the oil firm is the company which is dumping disguised oil waste in the African country causing many civilian death. The police had found a name and three dates on the mobile phone of the girl and at the trial it emerges the name is that of a ship and the dates is when it unloaded the dangerous oil waste in the unnamed African country. Before the trial there is a scene in which the accused is interviewed by senior members of the company who offer full support as long as he keeps their activities out of the court case and publicity.
A key part of the defence is that the accused had with him his lap top which contained confidential information about company business and this had disappeared during his absence from the room. When the journalist gives evidence the prosecution case falls apart because he had argued that there was no other possible explanation for the cause of the girl’s death.
During the weeks before the trial Travers and an assistant had studied all the available CCTV footage which included a man throwing something into the river Thames a short distance away from the hotel. It is only after the trial when the acquitted man is talking to his wife and the media about the fact he and the barrister were at Oxford together and played cricket, mentioning that he was a left handed bowler that the barrister remembers that the man on the CCTV was throwing something with his left arm. There is also the question of timing with a gap of 10 to 15 minutes between the time that the accused was seen on CCTV leaving the Take Away shop and asking a man in a lift for the time and he replies 8.40. The shop is only some five six minutes away from the Hotel a missing period of 10 to 15 minutes. The accused had suggested that the man in the lift had got the time wrong but this is shot down by the prosecution because the man was a salesman for a well known international watchmaker. The barrister confronts the former accused in a car park saying that he got the lap top after the area had been dredged and that on the computer there was child pornography. The girl had persuaded him to go out so she could check the lap top for information, having found out the password (we are not told how) and had found the photos and on his return she had said she proposed to inform his employers and police. He had planted the formation about the name of ship and the dates on her mobile phone to implicate his employers. He had then got rid of the lap top and made a point of drawing attention to his return at the desk and by asking the time of the man in the lift. The barrister had attempted to get the ex wife to give her reasons for divorcing but she had refused but made the comment that she had been unable to meet her husband’s needs.
The murderer does not deny the crime but argues that there are insufficient grounds to justify a retrial and while he could be reported for the child abuse images, he would argue that the images had been added to machine by someone else. The barrister then pulls a gun and kills his former friend. The admission of guilt and the “judicial” killing are a surprise given the rest of the story. We the audience know that this is not the first time the barrister has taken the law into his own hands out of retribution
Earlier in the series we are shown the barrister seeing the man whose admission of guilt led to his break down leaving the local railway station at the same time and getting onto a bus. Travers hires a taxi and follows the man to a bus stop close to a lane leading to an isolated farm building. The man was subsequently found shot and we know from other scenes that it is the barrister who executes the man despite pleas for mercy. We also know that barrister had been haunted by the teenage boy who had been murdered by the man who had been found not guilty because of the barrister‘s skill.
We had also witnessed the barrister destroying the prosecution case at a local crown court by being able to show that the police officer had manufactured evidence. The accused was a criminal who had several convictions as well as several unproven crimes. The detective senior partner of the two officers left his colleague to carry the can. The senior detective is assigned to solve the murder of the man in isolated farm dwelling. We learn that the man was given the ramshackle accommodation in return for doing jobs on the farm. He is identified as a former animal welfare rights activist who was acquitted for murder. The officer visits Travers, ostensibly to find out about he victim. However he has his suspicions which appear to be confirmed when he finds Travers owns a car of the type whose tracks have been found close in lane from the bus stop before the gated field to the home of the victim. The Detective waits one day until the barrister’s wife leaves the house to take an earth sample from the tyres but the analyst says that while it could have been in the lane contamination makes the sample inconclusive as evidence.
Another inquiry concerns the murder weapon which the analyst says had a particular mark similar to that in two other crimes which suggests the same gun maker. The detective follows up one the crimes visiting a convicted murderer in a young offender’s institution due to move to an adult prison shortly on his 18th birthday. The boy had been bullied at school and shot and killed the bully claiming to have found the gun in a skip. The detective demands to know the supplier of the weapon and when the boy refuses he warns that he will arrange for him to move to a hard prison and to be used by the men. The boy is terrified of what could happen if the detective carries out the threat but also of his fate if the source for the gun is revealed. The boy gives on the basis that the gun provider will not be told. The gun maker is arrested and turns out to be the boyfriend of the boy’s mother. He is forced to admit to making a gun available recently and in return for help at his trial gives the name. The purchaser however explain that it was a commission and that he never saw the individual as it was raining and dark and when he received the money at an agreed place he left the gun which was then taken by the person, he assumed, who had contacted him. The detective then visits this man at his home and persuades him to return to the police station and amend his statement identifying Travers as the purchaser.
The wife of the barrister has a successful career as a publisher but gave it up after her husband’s breakdown and his decision to work on non murder cases in the provinces. She has been conducting a class on English Literature at the young offender’s institution and the only individual attending who shows genuine interest and understanding is the young bullied murderer. He gives her the first part of a novel which impresses her greatly which she shows to her former employer who is also impressed but wants her to return to work for him. He wants to know the background of the boy and unable to get the information officially she works out where he lived and eventually makes contact with his mother. The mother is only interested in the potential of getting money. When the boy commits suicide the barrister’s wife blames herself and longs to get away back to her old life. In fact the detective had told his mother’s lover who tells the boy’s mother and who berates her son for the betrayal, and it is this that drives the boy to commit suicide out of fear of the worse to come his way.
The detective is prepared to say and do anything to gain the conviction of anyone he believes guilty. He had become aggressive, prone to explosive bursts of temper and abusive towards his wife and indifferent to her problems with a comparatively new baby. When she walks out of a store with an inexpensive trinket and as arrested her husbanded is more concerned about the impact on his reputation than the emotional state of mind of his wife. He hits her and walks out of the home admitting the following morning that he had spent the night with someone picked up. He is then contrite and returns home with flowers saying that all will be well as he will gain a prosecution. Which will establish him further in his career? They will go out and celebrate in the evening. When he returns later she is packed up ready to leave and in the resulting commotion he falls down stairs and dies.
Following the disgrace and suspension of his partner at the commencement of the series, The Detective is told to take on a young intelligent new detective who happens also to be black. The young detective is horrified by the behaviour of the senior man and reports him to his superior who first tells the recruit that he approves of the senior detective because he gets results and then only by learning from the man will be making up for having come behind his back and telling tales.
When the detectives dies the senior officer is concerned because the man had been about to solve the latest murder and he asks the assistant to give him the notes but there are none. He insists the detective goes through the files to see if there is any clue to what had been found. The only thing he discovers is the folded photo of the barrister used to guide the man who had arranged the gun purchaser to change his evidence.
Traver’s wife is concerned by his decision to take on the case of her former boyfriend fearing it will lead to another breakdown. He repeatedly says there is no going back. His sister comments that the change has come about because of the death of man who was guilty of the murder of teenage boy and that had she known it would have had such a good effect she would have killed the man herself. This leads his wife to speculate to herself about her husband‘s role in the death and visits where the man was found murdered. She then pleads with him to leave the area and go back to London, something he had already decided to do. At the conclusion of the final episode she says to her husband in a questioning way, we are going to be alright, and he reassures her.
There are four clues that this is only the first series of one or more. I have already mentioned the discovery of the folded photo and the admission of the new recruit that he had changed his mind about the dead detective and his methods.
The barrister and his wife have a daughter who begins studies at a university in London using the parental London home which they have retained. At one point the home is broken into and the assumption made that this was the oil firm trying to find out how much the barrister knew of their dealings. The barrister works out that the break was undertaken by his client in order to enhance the cover story that the girl has been murdered by someone on behalf of his employers. There is more to come regarding the daughter.
In the first case when the barrister gets the case dismissed because of the police fabrication of evidence, the prosecuting Counsel is a long term adversary who holds the barrister in contempt because of his alleged values. The same Counsel is the prosecutor in the trial of the friend from university days. There is newspaper reference to the disappearance of the released accused and other references which suggest this aspect of the story and the rivalry between the two legal men is not over
The final clue comes at the end when he is seen taking on another case and warning the client that he will only take cases he believes in and that he will walk away if he finds they are not innocent of the committed crime. There is something sinister and threatening in the statement suggesting more is to come
On Saturday night I watched the first episode of new mega series about King Arthur, Merlin Camelot and all that which can be said to be a cross between Spartacus Blood and Sand and the Game of Thrones. Mr Purefoy is also a member of the cast.
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