O AGENTE SECRETO (THE SECRET AGENT)
2025 | Dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho | 161 Minutes
"We need to protect what we still have."
2025 | Dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho | 161 Minutes
"We need to protect what we still have."
In 1977, a former professor travels to Recife during the carnival holiday. He plans to flee Brazil with his young son, but not before making a desperate attempt to retrieve government files on his late mother to preserve his fleeting memory of her. Meanwhile, a powerful enemy from his past is determined to see him dead.
Authentically staged and filmed to visually resemble a 1970s political thriller, the subject of Kleber Mendonça Filho's The Secret Agent is far from a cunning spy but he must conduct himself like one while under constant threat in a world turned upside down. The picture disturbingly depicts the casual tyranny of the Brazilian military dictatorship active during its period setting through the normalized corrupt behavior of local policemen as well as hired assassins carrying about their business openly. Though it often plays like a romp, with a wealth of snappy dialogue and skewering humor, the palpable paranoia that lingers on nearly every frame exudes an inescapable feeling of stifling unease.
The plot of The Secret Agent is relatively clear cut though the unconventional structure of the picture is anything but, presenting events and ideas through a rather tangled design. Mendonça Filho takes the viewer on several intriguing detours that offer exposition and context in ways that are both enlightening and amusing. Notably, the audience surrogate, a history student in the present day researching the protagonist Armando, isn't revealed until the very end of the first act, and the infrequent cuts back to her at moments of rising tension serve as reminders that while the events of the story already transpired decades ago, they are as vivid and relevant as ever, perennially worthy of reexamination. The feature truly comes alive during its more fantastical interludes, with stand-out sequences that include a dramatization of the absurd "hairy leg" news articles reporting brutal attacks on queer people carried out by a severed appendage and Aramndo's surreal nightmare blending striking imagery from throughout the film at the top of the third act. The stylish camerawork and vibrant color palette of the picture are perfectly complemented by excellent setting-appropriate needle-drops.
Wagner Moura is outstanding as Armando, naturally charming and convincingly embodying a principled man on the crossroads of history, attempting to recover his past and secure his future under the most precarious circumstances. In addition to capably carrying the narrative in the lead role, Moura also plays Armando's son Fernando in the picture's epilogue, delivering a performance that is impressively completely different from his Armando in tone and demeanor. Standing out among the supporting cast are Robério Diógenes as the despicable oafish police chief Euclides, Carlos Francisco as Armando's venerable father-in-law Alexandre, and Tânia Maria as the rather badass former anarcho-communist Dona Sebastiana.
Rather than overtly lecturing viewers on the evils of authoritarianism, The Secret Agent accentuates the strangeness of living in deeply troubling times. Through his protagonist, Mendonça Filho demonstrates that it takes bravery to stand up for what's right in order to pave the way to a future with "less mischief." The tragic truth is that not everyone will make it to that future, and it would behoove those that remain to study their history or risk forgetting it entirely.
FRAGMENTS
- My first exposure to Wagner Moura was his engaging portrayal of Pablo Escobar on Narcos, and while I was already impressed with his performance in that series I've grown to really appreciate his range as an actor in films like Alex Garland's Civil War and this film
- Prolific German character actor Udo Kier, who previously starred as a detestable villain in Mendonça Filho's Bacurau, makes his final screen appearance in this film in one memorable scene playing a Jewish Holocaust survivor who the idiotic police chief mistakes for a Nazi fugitive
- The plot appropriately references Jaws and The Omen, both films from the 1970s that reflected the anxieties of the time through a fantastical lens
Authentically staged and filmed to visually resemble a 1970s political thriller, the subject of Kleber Mendonça Filho's The Secret Agent is far from a cunning spy but he must conduct himself like one while under constant threat in a world turned upside down. The picture disturbingly depicts the casual tyranny of the Brazilian military dictatorship active during its period setting through the normalized corrupt behavior of local policemen as well as hired assassins carrying about their business openly. Though it often plays like a romp, with a wealth of snappy dialogue and skewering humor, the palpable paranoia that lingers on nearly every frame exudes an inescapable feeling of stifling unease.
The plot of The Secret Agent is relatively clear cut though the unconventional structure of the picture is anything but, presenting events and ideas through a rather tangled design. Mendonça Filho takes the viewer on several intriguing detours that offer exposition and context in ways that are both enlightening and amusing. Notably, the audience surrogate, a history student in the present day researching the protagonist Armando, isn't revealed until the very end of the first act, and the infrequent cuts back to her at moments of rising tension serve as reminders that while the events of the story already transpired decades ago, they are as vivid and relevant as ever, perennially worthy of reexamination. The feature truly comes alive during its more fantastical interludes, with stand-out sequences that include a dramatization of the absurd "hairy leg" news articles reporting brutal attacks on queer people carried out by a severed appendage and Aramndo's surreal nightmare blending striking imagery from throughout the film at the top of the third act. The stylish camerawork and vibrant color palette of the picture are perfectly complemented by excellent setting-appropriate needle-drops.
Wagner Moura is outstanding as Armando, naturally charming and convincingly embodying a principled man on the crossroads of history, attempting to recover his past and secure his future under the most precarious circumstances. In addition to capably carrying the narrative in the lead role, Moura also plays Armando's son Fernando in the picture's epilogue, delivering a performance that is impressively completely different from his Armando in tone and demeanor. Standing out among the supporting cast are Robério Diógenes as the despicable oafish police chief Euclides, Carlos Francisco as Armando's venerable father-in-law Alexandre, and Tânia Maria as the rather badass former anarcho-communist Dona Sebastiana.
Rather than overtly lecturing viewers on the evils of authoritarianism, The Secret Agent accentuates the strangeness of living in deeply troubling times. Through his protagonist, Mendonça Filho demonstrates that it takes bravery to stand up for what's right in order to pave the way to a future with "less mischief." The tragic truth is that not everyone will make it to that future, and it would behoove those that remain to study their history or risk forgetting it entirely.
FRAGMENTS
- My first exposure to Wagner Moura was his engaging portrayal of Pablo Escobar on Narcos, and while I was already impressed with his performance in that series I've grown to really appreciate his range as an actor in films like Alex Garland's Civil War and this film
- Prolific German character actor Udo Kier, who previously starred as a detestable villain in Mendonça Filho's Bacurau, makes his final screen appearance in this film in one memorable scene playing a Jewish Holocaust survivor who the idiotic police chief mistakes for a Nazi fugitive
- The plot appropriately references Jaws and The Omen, both films from the 1970s that reflected the anxieties of the time through a fantastical lens
