L'agent secret

Watched on Sydney Film Festival 2025

Watching Kleber Mendonça Filho's "The Secret Agent" feels less like observing a story unfold, and more like stepping into the humid, throbbing heart of Recife during Brazil's 1977 military rule. Forget the usual spy thriller beats; this is something far stranger, richer, and ultimately more haunting. It wraps you in the feverish embrace of Carnaval, not as spectacle, but as a desperate refuge for Marcelo (a profoundly compelling Wagner Moura), a researcher on the run seeking camouflage in the very city that birthed him.

What lingers isn't just the plot, but the film's insistent, almost physical question: what survives when history tries to erase itself? Mendonça Filho, a son of Recife pouring his own lifeblood into every frame, suggests memory itself is the battleground. He meticulously rebuilds a world - the textures of the time, the sidelong glances, the oppressive heat - not just for accuracy, but to etch onto the screen the stories official archives ignored. We feel the quiet terror faced by LGBTQ+ folk, witness the exploitation shadowing indigenous workers, see how the city itself becomes a living archive, a character pulsing with secrets and scars. Marcelo moves through it all with a fugitive's alertness, yet also with the weary, amused detachment of a tourist in his own collapsing world, adding a layer of profound melancholy.

The film possesses an extraordinary, unhurried confidence. It breathes. It pauses for moments of bizarre humour, startling eroticism, or pure, aching sadness. Mendonça Filho is a sensualist, weaving a tapestry of sound - distant drums, whispered conversations, the city's own rhythm - and texture. He isn't afraid of the surreal: a severed leg appears, sexuality is presented with startling frankness, and meanings shimmer just below the surface like heat haze, resisting easy capture. That deliberate pace, stretching towards two hours and forty minutes, isn't indulgence; it's the very fabric of the experience. It demands your presence, inviting you not just to watch, but to inhabit Recife's streets and Marcelo's precarious existence.

"The Secret Agent" isn't merely watched; it's absorbed through the skin. It's a challenging, deeply rewarding journey into the weight of the past and the fragile resilience of memory. This is filmmaking of rare courage, unafraid to linger in the uncomfortable spaces, to make us feel the ghosts whispering in Recife's humid air. It's a testament to the power of cinema to hold history close, ensuring some truths, at least, refuse to be forgotten.

The Secret Agent is a film that, while ambitious, doesn't quite deliver on its promises. Its long runtime weighs heavily on the narrative, which oscillates between moments of great intensity and others where the pacing falters. The title, though intriguing, feels somewhat disconnected from the true essence of the story.

The acting is, without a doubt, the film's strongest asset. There's authenticity in the performances, well-crafted nuances, and a clear sense of commitment from the cast. The 1970s setting and the backdrop of Brazil's military dictatorship are excellent thematic choices, with immense potential to provoke reflection.

However, the script loses focus. Too many storylines are introduced, too many subplots promised, only to be left unresolved or poorly developed. The result is a lingering sense of a film that aimed to say more than it could effectively organize.

In short, The Secret Agent is a visually competent and well-intentioned work that ultimately gets lost in its own ambition. The marketing built expectations of a powerful impact that the final product fails to sustain. In the end, it's a middling film, full of good ideas and solid performances, but with uneven execution.

The film has a Brazilian setting, not the stylized Brazilian setting, but one that makes you feel you actually know those people. In truth, the entire film gives this feeling.

It is a work that seems to be something you recognize. The way people speak, the "villains", everything is so symmetrically believable that the tension establishes itself naturally. The story does not deal with big points, it is the story of one person. Perhaps of many.

In this sense, the work is characterized by the characters, and all are very well realized and acted. Even though in certain moments scenes are prolonged in order to show these characters, as occurs throughout the film. Although time passes quickly while watching the film, it has many scenes that seem to serve only to extend the length of the work.

Even with its excesses, one of the greats of Brazilian cinema.

This movie is a conversation of Pernambuco with Pernambuco. Brazil with Brazil. Maybe may look strange for people Who are not from here (even silly) But every story (even the hairy leg one) is conected with Pernambuco's culture.

Excelent direction, screenplay and acting by Wagner Moura.

About the ending, spoilers ahead:

A lot of people can find that it has a lot of loose endings, but that's the point. The whole movie is about resistance of memory and how unfortunaly, in Brazil, we tend to cast aside. The opening scene shows the indiference we have with violence and how we don't care with individuals. The ending doesn't explain what happened, Who did it, because in real life there's a million storys we just forget and treat like numbers (91 deads and Carnaval)

For people Who maybe feel this film is too long, this movie is not trying to entertain you. Is trying to speak with you, talk to you.

The Secret Agent is more than just one of the great films of the year. It reflects the maturity of Brazilian cinema and the strength of a generation of filmmakers who have changed the way the country is viewed on the international stage. After the success of Walter Salles's I'm Still Here, which reignited Brazil's presence at the Oscars, the arrival of Kleber Mendonça Filho's new film is surrounded by expectations, comparisons, and challenges. And perhaps that is precisely why The Secret Agent is not a film that will please everyone - nor does it try to be.

Some may be frustrated by the slow pace, the prolonged silences, or the open ending. But it is precisely in these details that the beauty of The Secret Agent lies. Mendonça does not want to shock, he does not want to give everything away on a silver platter. He wants to provoke reflection, he wants the viewer to leave the theater still processing what they saw - and what they felt. The discomfort the film causes is not a flaw; it is language.

What we see here is mature Brazilian cinema, bold and aware of its importance. A film that looks to the past without becoming hostage to nostalgia, and that speaks about the present without needing to shout. O Agente Secreto is a deep dive into the history and soul of a country that is still trying to understand itself. It is a work that requires patience, but rewards it with intensity.

In the end, what Kleber Mendonça Filho delivers is a film about memory, resistance, and belonging. A portrait of a man trying to escape himself, and of a country trying to forget what cannot be forgotten. With precise direction, an engaging script, and remarkable performances, O Agente Secreto is undoubtedly one of the great milestones of recent Brazilian cinema.