L'agent secret

"The Secret Agent" is yet another proof of how great Brazilian cinema is. It's very comparable to I'm Still Here in terms of themes and filmmaking, but it's much more violent. The film tells an intense, heavy story set during a period of Brazilian history rich enough to spawn countless narratives. And despite its long runtime, it's always magnetic and gripping thanks to its incredible direction, cinematography, and-above everything else-the performances.

The cast, led by the legendary Wagner Moura (with a special shout-out to Tânia Maria), deliver Oscar-worthy, unforgettable work. There are even a few funny or lighthearted scenes sprinkled in to lift the mood, which I really appreciated.

On the other hand, the third act felt a bit underwhelming. The choice to use the same actor to play a different character (something I usually hate) felt unnecessary, and several loose ends were left hanging. You can fill them in with your own imagination, but with such a long runtime, those threads and the entire story deserved to be completed on screen. I would have trimmed some of the excess earlier to allow the story to conclude fully.

These issues prevent me from giving the film a higher rating-but it remains a great piece of art and filmmaking nonetheless.

I like Director Kleber Mendonça Filho, who doubles up as script writer in AGENTE SECRETO. He pulls no punches when it comes to depicting reality in his beloved Brazil.

Over the course of its 160 minutes, AGENTE SECRETO portrays three men in the Solimões family of Brazil's Pernambuco State who have experienced in different ways the evils of dictatorship, with Wagner Moura delivering yet another magnificent performance as each of those men in their generation.

As other reviewers point out, this is an account of events in Brazil at a difficult time when dictatorship reigned over that marvellous and multicultured land, and Mendonça Filho hides no details hard to admit about one's country.

The dialogue floats from apparently normal conversation among common people to a growing realization that everyone is under threat. Photographs of then Brazilian dictatorial President Ernesto Geisel and other senior government officials hang in just about every office, corrupt policemen give cover to hitmen, welcome bribes and keep breaking the law.

In a film where you also get the amiable soul of Brazilians, the contrast comes from the main villain, the wealthy company owner Ghirotti well played by Luciano Chirolli, who wants university professor/researcher Solimões I's patent, and centralization of the university funding and operation.

That contrast also hits home with raw, at times exceedingly violent action, where JAWS (yes, the Spielberg-directed 1975 film) has a double with a human leg in it, and the supernatural intervenes as that leg suddenly comes alive, becomes hairy - kids laugh about comic pictures of the "hairy leg" in newspapers - and starts kicking people engaging in sex, and other compromising positions. A black Angolan woman displaying an excellent, just perfect diction of Portuguese Portuguese, keeps the residents at Solimões II's place informed about that leg. Why she and her husband appear in the film only baffled me, as they do not add to the narrative or action, other than they fled Angola and are on their way to Sweden.

The animistic, supernatural element also comes in with a scarecrow-like masked man on the side of a Pernambuco country road, which revisits Solimões II in his nightmares.

Add to that a cat with two faces and four eyes, at least two blind. One can interpret that in various ways. I see it as symbolizing the many angles of history and human memory.

Constantly in the background of dictatorial Brazil of the 1970s, the government poses an elusive but real and constant threat to all citizens.

Ultimately, nothing is sacred: two young girls are listening to tape recordings of Solimões II interviewed by a woman called Elza. How and why they have that supposedly personal and secret material, who they are - neither is a relative of the Solimões - and work for, is not disclosed but they have very modern high quality computers, so they are current generation.

A positive note emerges toward the end, with Solimões III at the helm of a blood donor unit, symbolizing the heart of Brazil pumping in spite of all menaces and democratic hiccups.

Superb period reconstruction - plenty of lovely VW Beetles, and other 1960s/70s vehicles on show - only heightens the enormous quality of Evgenia Alexandrova's cinematography, backed by highly effective editing by Matheus Farias and Eduardo Serrano.

I sincerely believe AGENTE SECRETO and actor Wagner Moura deserve Academy Award nominations as Best Foreign Film and Best Actor, respectively. 8/10.

Kleber Mendonça Filho's Secret Agent is a film of striking visual elegance. Its art direction is nothing short of superb, reconstructing 1970s Recife with a sense of texture and atmosphere that is both raw and poetic. The city emerges not just as a backdrop, but as a living, breathing character - a mix of beauty, decay, and tropical melancholy. The film is also populated by a gallery of eccentric characters, embodied by an equally eccentric cast that gives the work a peculiar and often intriguing rhythm.

Yet, despite this sensory richness, Secret Agent ultimately feels weighed down by its own self-awareness. The screenplay is disappointingly unoriginal and excessively self-referential, operating more as a parnassian memorial to the director's own childhood than as a gripping piece of suspense. What could have been an inventive political thriller dissolves into a predictable collage of Brazilian clichés - corruption, nostalgia, and class tension - presented with a kind of weary inevitability that borders on pamphleteering.

Wagner Moura, despite critical praise, delivers an oddly muted performance. His restrained acting feels more absent than subtle, and the decision to have him play both father and son proves to be an unnecessary and somewhat embarrassing gimmick that adds little to the story's emotional weight.

In the end, Secret Agent stands as a technically accomplished but dramatically hollow film - a beautifully framed echo chamber where form triumphs over substance, and personal memory overshadows genuine cinematic tension.

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.

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.