THE SECRET AGENT (O Agente Secreto, NYFF 2025) – Review by Diane Carson
The Secret Agent (O Agente Secreto) details Brazil’s dictatorship in 1977
A complex dramatization of tragic history comes to vivid life in Brazilian writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent (O Agente Secreto). Set in 1977 Brazil, academic leftist and technology expert Armando retreats to his home town of Recife to reunite with his son, hoping also to elude violent retaliation perpetrated under General Ernesto Geisel’s military dictatorship, a rule characterized by rampant corruption and indifference to human life. Using the pseudonym Marcelo in an attempt at concealment, Armando has a death squad after him for his opposition to a government minister who was ready to exploit and monetize scientific researchers’ discoveries while also disbanding the university department. For his ethical stand, Armando earns candidacy for targeted elimination.
Significantly, in the opening moments, Mendonça Filho announces that this story will include imaginative, even challenging complexity. For in the opening shots, photos appear without contextualization and, much later in this film’s two hour 39 minute running time, two young women will be listening to audiotapes. It takes time for the import of these additions to register, testimony to Mendonça Filho’s confidence in viewers’ engagement with Brazilian crises leading, later, to modest change. Adding to the scope of political indictment, an early scene inaugurates the comprehensive levels of corruption as the opening action intercepts Marcelo (now his stated name) heading from northern Brazil to Recife on the northeastern Atlantic coast. There his eight-year-old son Fernando lives under his father-in-law Alexandre’s tutelage, a parallel to Mendonça Filho’s age at the time of this film. In his bright yellow Volkswagen bug (already a physical constraint asserted), Marcelo pulls into an isolated gas station. A corpse partially covered by cardboard and menaced by local dogs lies several yards away, out in the open since, Marcelo learns, the past Sunday.
Adding to the already unsettling events, a carnivalesque attendant acknowledges the corpse, its retrieval postponed until after the official carnival. Stunned, Marcelo remains perplexed as two police arrive, clearly with a monetary interest in Marcelo, though they have no intention of investigating or removing the dead body. One officer subjects Marcelo to a thorough questioning as he searches the VW. Soon, in this desert outpost, another car arrives with festive, wildly dressed passengers. They speed away quickly. In this and in subsequent scenes, the film slyly, explicitly establishes the breadth and depth of this surrealistic, appalling environment.
In Recife, Marcelo joins a loosely organized, underground community with similar needs to avoid discovery. Taking a job in an Identification Records Office where the narrow rows of filing cabinets reinforce his physical entrapment, Marcelo hopes to circumvent attention and to learn more about his mother. Meantime, the unethical chief of police Euclides aids two sinister hitmen contracted to kill Marcelo, harasses a local Holocaust survivor, and ignores his contractual obligations. Aware that the local police chief’s interest in him is not innocuous, Marcelo must navigate a high wire balancing act to survive.
Ever a man on a tightrope, Marcelo must evaluate the relative safety or potential level of danger in every room he enters. His constant unease, his defensive wariness in each situation, speaks volumes about the cautious mindset of a man hiding in plain sight. So far, his acute survival sensibilities have kept him alive, and in Recife he’s aided by Elza (a fabulous Maria Fernanda Cândido), a courageous facilitator of the many endangered political refugees she hides, including women of color and LQBTQ individuals. In effect, it becomes clear that anyone who deviates in any way from the regime’s narrow-minded rule will suffer its brutality.
Reinforcing the historical legacy of the dictatorship, a second narrative layer is introduced late in the film. Set in the present day, students listen to and transcribe audio cassette recordings that add background on Marcelo’s situation. And in yet another subplot, oceanographers retrieve a shark with a partial human leg in its stomach, appalling evidence of the bodies dumped at sea. This ironically and humorously connects to Marcelo’s son Ferdinand’s insistence that he absolutely must see Tubarão (Jaws) at the local Boa Vista cinema, where Marcelo’s father-in-law projects popular films. This in-depth profile of one “Secret Agent” unfolds with suspense amidst tragic details. No spoilers, but the staggering finale leaves a lasting impact. Expertly interweaving all of this and more in its rich 159 minutes, Mendonça Filho was awarded Cannes’ Best Director award. For his masterful performance as Armando/Marcelo/Adult Fernando, Wagner Moura won the Cannes Best Performance by an Actor. At the 63rd New York Film Festival, my second viewing of The Secret Agent deepened my admiration for this magnificent, powerful film. In Portuguese with English subtitles.
