‘The Secret Agent’ evaluation: Kleber Mendonça Filho’s political crime thriller is a must-see

Aquarius and Bacurau director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent weaves a posh, time-jumping political crime thriller, specializing in one man’s expertise of persecution. 

Primarily set within the late ’70s within the Brazilian author/director’s hometown of Recife, Pernambuco, however shifting fluidly between the previous and current, the movie predominantly takes place within the tumultuous years of Brazil’s navy dictatorship. It is a heavy matter explored with humanity, boasting such a compelling script, impeccable appearing, and hanging Nineteen Seventies aesthetic that it is unimaginable to look away.

Within the lead, Narcos and Civil Conflict star Wagner Moura provides a tremendously inside efficiency as a person justifiably paranoid in his mission to flee his nation’s authoritarian regime. There is a cause Moura took Finest Actor at Cannes, with Mendonça Filho snatching Finest Director; The Secret Agent sees each dive headfirst into the complexities of rampant corruption and desperately trying to find a manner out.  

The Secret Agent flicks between previous and current to craft a posh narrative.

Over three acts fantastically edited by Eduardo Serrano and Matheus Farias, Mendonça Filho’s movie runs on a number of timelines prior to now and current. In 1977, we meet Armando (Moura), who’s going by the alias Marcelo, a person newly arrived in a residential complicated in Recife throughout the annual Carnival interval. A small Kodak field suits all of his possessions, and he provides little away about himself. The residences are run by vigilant matriarch Dona Sebastiana (Tânia Maria), and Armando is welcomed with open arms. Amongst omnipresent Carnival celebrations, Armando is warmly launched by his septuagenarian guardian to his neighbours. They’re additionally political refugees, although not all get pleasure from utilizing the time period. There’s Thereza Vitória (Isabél Zuaa), who has fled the Angolan Civil Conflict along with her associate; there’s single mom Claudia (Hermila Guedes) whose previous past her dental career stays her personal thriller to bear. Many reside underneath risk of demise, like our protagonist.

In the meantime, corruption runs rife via town streets, as do careening cop vans stuffed with crooked officers, hooting, hollering, and unabashedly lawless. Essentially the most outstanding in The Secret Agent is police chief Euclides (Robério Diógenes) and his bodyguard-like sons Arlindo (Ítalo Martins) and Sergio (Igor de Araújo), who enter the story by being pulled out of Carnival when a person’s severed leg is present in a useless shark — and that is not at all the restrict of the violence forward in The Secret Agent.

Slowly, the movie reveals the seriousness of Armando’s state of affairs: he is a widowed college professor, specialising in electrical engineering, who’s fleeing persecution amid the nation’s navy dictatorship. In his previous, standing as much as company greed and corrupt authorities paperwork has left him weak and robbed him of his beloved spouse Fátima (New Bandits‘ Alice Carvalho). Getting out isn’t any straightforward feat, as corruption, surveillance, and sinister males orbit Armando at each flip — together with two unnervingly unflappable hitmen, Bobbi (Ferrari‘s Gabriel Leone) and his stepfather Augusto (Roney Villela), on his path. 

In addition to Dona Sebastiana, others work underneath the radar to assist these persecuted escape the nation, resembling Elza (Vermelho Monet‘s Maria Fernanda Cândido), who gives a type of witness safety, promising passports in just a few days. A placement inside the metropolis’s Identification Institute is Armando’s greatest probability of discovering bodily proof of his mom’s identification earlier than he leaves Brazil together with his younger son, who lives together with his grandparents. 

Within the current, two younger investigators in São Paulo take heed to cassettes of recorded conversations from Armando’s time, and we’re left questioning the place precisely their analysis is main. Right here, and thru Mendonça Filho’s use of archival pictures, the movie turns into a fictional artifact in itself, a narrative worthy of examine and examination. Nevertheless it’s the lived-in performances by the actors themselves that convey this unstable historic interval to life, with Moura out entrance. 

Wagner Moura provides an incredible efficiency in The Secret Agent.

Tasked with a number of roles throughout time durations, Moura earns each inch of his Cannes Finest Actor award in The Secret Agent. The position was particularly written by Mendonça Filho for him, in any case. A basic hero courageous sufficient to problem highly effective, corrupt entities whereas rightly fearing for his life and his household, Armando predominantly internalises the extent of significant risk always weighing on him. Moura’s subtlety and frustration imbues our protagonist with a deeply human valiance, one which makes us as viewers wish to shield him in any respect prices. 

Embodying a real ensemble affair, The Secret Agent sees Moura surrounded by daring, outlandish performances, all the best way from iconic German actor Udo Kier as expat tailor Hans to Greta star Diógenes as town’s corrupt chief of police. Notably, Armando finds sanctuary together with his father-in-law Sr. Alexandre (an exquisite efficiency by Bacurau‘s Carlos Francisco) who owns the native Cinema São Luiz, exhibiting Brazilian movies alongside American horror movies like Jaws and The Omen that trigger outright hysteria in audiences. Right here, and thru Evgenia Alexandrova’s beautiful cinematography, you may really feel Mendonça Filho’s reverence for cinema as a filmmaker, critic, and curator — and its significance in turbulent occasions. Actually, The Secret Agent is an ideal pairing with the director’s 2023 documentary Photos of Ghosts (Retratos Fantasmas), which traces cinema in his hometown of Recife.

The Secret Agent runs on a hanging ’70s aesthetic. 

Ítalo Martins, Robério Diógenes, Wagner Moura, and Igor de Araújo in “The Secret Agent.”
Credit score: Victor Juca

Regardless of the paranoia and corruption that pervades the narrative, Mendonça Filho’s movie is a surprising ’70s affair. Shot in anamorphic Panavision, it is nothing wanting a feast for the eyes (earlier than it is not). Every scene comes awash with the last decade’s signature oranges, browns, and yellows, with manufacturing designer Thales Junqueira’s meticulous work on full show. Architect Chu Ming Silveira’s iconic, egg-shaped, yellow public telephone cubicles referred to as Orelhões (or “Huge Ears”) kind a significant a part of each the storyline and metropolis panorama, whereas costume designer Rita Azevedo finds wonderful authenticity in period-specific outfits.

Regardless of the political upheaval on the bottom, Mendonça Filho additionally reverently and precisely captures the visuals of Recife, with Armando taking in beautiful cityscapes from the Cinema São Luiz projection room, bathed in daylight, and the road scenes typically specializing in the members of the neighborhood caught up within the chaos. There’s additionally just a little magical realism thrown in for sudden measure, and composers Mateus Alves and Tomaz Alves Souza pull every thing along with an immersive, atmospheric rating.

In the end, Mendonça Filho’s movie explores a time of political corruption, violence, and warranted paranoia via a human lens, with the director saying in a press assertion, “The problem was to make a movie concerning the logic of that point with out ticking all of the containers of the dictatorship film.” With Moura’s highly effective efficiency framed by a reverent, genuine aesthetic, The Secret Agent is a deeply humanised have a look at a historic second of authoritarianism and authorities corruption. It is a must-see.

The Secret Agent was reviewed out of BFI London Movie Competition and will probably be launched within the UK and Eire Feb. 20, 2026. The movie hits cinemas in New York on Nov. 26, and Los Angeles Dec. 5, with nationwide launch to comply with.