Secrets of the Heart (1997)

**Secretos del Corazón (Secrets of the Heart, 1997)**

_Directed by Montxo Armendáriz_

This may be the most imaginative and creative coming-of-age film I have ever seen. None of that "discovers sex," "learns own gender identity," or "grows up" that is so common to the genre. Here is a child whose naive unconditional love is gradually challenged by learning about the "warts" in his family, that is to say, about the very real, but very human, imperfections of the adults in his life. That's a profoundly different story, and Montxo Armendáriz tells it with grace, intelligence, and perfect cinematic framing.

Andoni Erburu's performance as nine-year-old Javi is nothing short of amazing. The gradual acceptance of things that the child could not accept is played with such subtleness, so real, it is magnetic. You watch this boy move from certainty to confusion to a kind of painful understanding, and Erburu never announces it, never overplays it. He's in practically every scene, and he earned every award he won.

Set in rural Spain in the early 1960s, the film invites comparison to other Franco-era childhood films like _Cría Cuervos_ and _El Espíritu de la Colmena_. But that connection is pretty well downplayed here. Except for the brief reference to the suicide of the soldier father, this story is timeless. It could take place in any culture anywhere. Here is a child investigating family secrets, overhearing things he shouldn't, and discovering that the adults he loves are flawed and complicated: This isn't about dictatorship or political oppression; this is about growing up and learning that love doesn't require perfection.

Armendáriz's framing is perfect. Every shot feels considered, intimate, exactly right for a story told from a child's perspective. The film won four Goya Awards and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and it deserved every bit of recognition. There are so many things right about this film that it's difficult to know where to start, but perhaps the most important is this: it understands that coming of age isn't about what you discover about yourself, but what you discover about everyone else, and whether you can still love them anyway.