The scenario is Dolores, a small town in Buenos Aires Province 220 km southeast of the city of Buenos Aires, and the time is 1975. The victim is Fermín López, a wealthy industrialist and big man in town, in his late fifties, married with one son, Ricardo, and two daughters. The movie opens with a farewell party in the family house for Ricardo, who is traveling to Buenos Aires to join the Navy. The morning after, Fermín is found dead sitting at his desk, a stab wound in the chest. Police investigation elicits a confession that proves to be false, and the rest of the movie deals with the identification of the true culprit by detective Marta Colombo, complicated by the fact that Fermín, a ruthless and unscrupulous man, had plenty of enemies in town. In the course of this inquiry some dark family secrets are unveiled.
This is it. There is not much originality here (there have been dozens of thrillers based on dark family secrets) but the final result is positive. The viewers are offered' the same clues that those in charge of solving the case have, making them active participants in the solution. The movie has excellent production values (acting, direction, cinematography) and keeps you attention from the beginning (there are some rough spots and a little loss of credibility at the end). The film is available under two titles; one is Voces Secretas (Secret Voices), the other Quemar las Naves (Burn the Ships) meaning taking extreme action in a difficult situation in order to foreclose the possibility of going backwards.
