Set in the year of 1977, “a time of mischief” in Brazil (as announced in the film opening), The Secret Agent follows the footsteps of technology researcher Armando (Wagner Moura). He assumes an alias (Marcelo) and seeks refuge in his native Recife, after a confronting a vindicative and bloodthirsty magnate. He arrives during carnival, with the city taken by frenzied revellers seeking pleasure, yet often lapsing into violence. The local newspaper announces that 91 people were killed just on that day. Perhaps this isn’t the most peaceful refuge Armando could seek.
Incidentally, the film director worked in his early years as a movie critic in the newspaper repeatedly showcased in the film (Diario de Pernambuco).
At least here Armando is in company of his 10-year-old(ish) son and his loving grandparents, who have an adoration for their in-law. The child’s mother died under circumstances Armando refuses to discuss. He insists that the boy can feel her company if they talk about the good moments. The woman is only seen once in the film, confronting the same magnate hellbent on revenge, as the film zigzags back and forth in time in order to reveal the developments that forced Armando into hiding.
The story starts with various grotesque elements. Armando stops on a roadside petrol station in order to fill his car, with a corpse casually laying just a few metres away. A shark is cut open and a human leg is found inside. A two-headed cat roams Armando’s new abode. And two criminals dispose of a female body in the river. They are the same two people charged with killing Armando later in the story. The graphic violence returns at the end of the story, as final face-off takes place, and Armando fights for his life.
The events that caused Armando and the unscrupulous magnate to fall out provide commentary on the regional differences of Brazil, as Mendonca Filho repeatedly seeks to place Recife on the world map. The bad guy wants Armando to focus his work on “local” matters because he believes that the most sophisticated research should be conducted in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (and not in the impoverished Northeast, where the Recife lies). He pays the hitman in Sao Paulo Cz$60,000, only for him to hire a local Recife killer for a mere Cz$4,000, a riff on the economic gap between the regions. This is something the 56-year-old Brazilian filmmaker had done before, in Bacurau (directed alongside Juliano Dornelles, in 2019) – far more explicitly and even didactically. In a way, this comment also extends to the film industry as a whole, as Mendonca Filho fights to expand the cinematic production beyond the Rio-Sao Paulo axis.
The director’s passion for cinema is palpable in many scenes. Armando’s father-in-law works as a projectionist in the local Sao Luiz Cinema. The Boa Vista Cinema is also briefly featured, along with its sad fate – the conversion of the movie theatres in Recife is the main topic of Pictures of Ghosts (2023). Films released in Brazilian cinemas that year are conspicuous: Armando’s son dreams of watching Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975), and the film topic is neatly tied in with the mysterious leg found inside the shark. Cinema-goers scream and become possessed after watching The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976) atb the Sao Luiz. Film posters too are prominent, such as one of Brazilian classic Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (Bruno Barreto, 1976).
Our warm and friendly protagonist has to seek shelter in a house for political and international refugees. This is where he befriends Angolan woman (Izabel Zuaa) and her husband, who fled the country presumably for political reasons (the country had just gained independence from Portugal, and the civil war was beginning to loom large), and others. They live under the watch of adorable septuagenarian Sebastiana, who delivers some of the film’s most hilarious one-liners and moments (she is played with panache by an actress whose name I could not identify). Armando is given a job in a government institution with a very strange function (something between a identification and registrars, occasionally serving as a police station).
Don’t expect a companion piece to I’m Still Here (Walter Salles, 2024), this year’s Best International Picture Oscar winner. Despite taking place during the dictatorship that ruled Brazil for 21 years (between 1964 and 1985), with pictures of military president Ernesto Geisel seen on the walls of most institutions (like Kim Jon-un or Donald Trump), The Secret Agent is not a political movie at all. It neither is based on real-life events nor it directly criticises the regime that routinely tortured and killed Brazilians for more than two decades.
The plot has a few loose ends. It is unclear when and why Armando left Recife. The allegiance of the police officers is also a little blurry. At times, they are seen in cahoots with the antagonist, yet in one key scene they do their utmost in order to protect our adorable protagonist. In addition, the film is dented by redundant subplots. Udo Kier plays a Jewish German tailor, in a role that fulfils absolutely no function. A rich and negligent woman is responsible for the death of her maid’s daughter. The severed leg acquires a life of its own (the outcome is an amusing yet random and disconnected scene, both narratively and stylistically).
Kleber Mendonca Filho’s fifth feature film combines the thriller vibes and the gruesome violence of Bacurau with the passion for cinema of the documentary Pictures of Ghosts, and also with native Recife. The city is a major character in three of his films: Neighbouring Sounds (2012), Aquarius (2016) and Pictures of Ghosts (2023). The Secret Agent lacks the subtlety of Mendonca Filho’s earlier films, with the director opting for crime twists and action thrills instead. It mostly works. This is neither a masterpiece of Brazilian cinema nor even one of director’s best films, yet it’s beautifully shot and enjoyable enough to watch.
The Secret Agent premiered in the Official Competition of the 78th Festival de Cannes, when this piece was originally written. Also showing in San Sebastian, at the BFI London Film Festival, at the Tallinn Black Nights, and at the Red Sea.
