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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.

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 a film I just saw at the Philadelphia Film Festival. Before I talk about the plot, I must warn you....this is NOT a film for kids or for those turned off by violence. The film features some brutal murders near the end and the story is certainly depressing...as it should be.

The story is set in Brazil in the 1970s. The nation had been under a military dictatorship since 1964 and the police in the film are uniformly shown to be evil. One of the people the police are looking for a man who you learn has done NOTHING illegal...he just got on the wrong side of a well-connected and evil man. So, much of the film consists of him hiding as well as various evil scum looking to kill him.

Is this a recipe for a fun film? Certainly not! But it is very well made and teaches us about a period in history we might not know much about and should! Well made and a sad film that might leave you feeling a bit drained by the time it's completed.

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.

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.

Kleber Mendonça Filho builds The Secret Agent as a film that initially resembles a political thriller about Brazil's military dictatorship, but whose emotional and formal core lies in the realm of memory. Not just historical memory, but personal, family and collective memories that the country repeatedly allows to vanish. Armando/Marcelo is not simply a victim of the regime; he is a man trying to rescue the image of his mother from oblivion while the nation systematically erases whatever does not suit its official narrative. This intimate, almost archaeological search places the protagonist in a space where memory and identity merge. Mendonça reinforces this dimension by structuring the film as a mosaic of small recollections, fragments of popular culture, everyday gestures, urban legends and social scars that turn Recife into a living repository of memory. Every detail works as a record of something that endures despite Brazil's historical negligence. Visually striking and supported by strong performances, especially from Wagner Moura, the film understands that remembering is not a passive act. It is confrontation. It is accepting that not everything can be recovered, and that Brazilian memory is shaped as much by what survives as by what slips away. By avoiding easy resolutions and refusing the conventional closure expected from genre cinema, The Secret Agent makes clear that its goal is not to solve a mystery but to expose a country deeply uncomfortable with its own past. In the end, the film reveals itself to be far less about espionage and far more about the imperfect effort to reconstruct stories that were almost lost.

I finally saw (for me) the most anticipated film of the year, Kleber Mendonça's best-and I like them all. Despite having read about it and seen the trailers, the film still surprised me. The final scenes moved me, something I hadn't experienced with his other films. Wagner Moura has an absurd, magnetic stage presence. Unpredictable, funny, disconcerting, and moving, The Secret Agent manages to convey the Brazilian soul on screen-quite a feat. All the countless characters are rich, captivating. A masterpiece, worthy of all the awards it has received and may yet receive.

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 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.

So frustrating, this movie had a lot of potential. Opening was great, cinematography and color are beautiful, cast is great, acting is great, but it was ruined in the editing. It's just too long, an hour needed to be cut. I also failed to see how the title correlated with the film at all. The best part about this film is it reminded me how good narcos is.

"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.

The film is nice but a good edition would cut it to 1 hour less at least. The start is fool of prosaicism that is not even good entreteiniment. After a long prelude the movie finally starts and is actually very dynamic and interesting. My frustration about it is that some ends are not explored giving me the impression a watched a documentary more than a film.

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.

This is a masterpiece and definitely Kleber Mendonça Filho's best film - what a fantastic career so far! I was moved by Wagner Mouras' performance. The film can feel a bit slow in the beginning as many characters are included in the scene without much explanation but all those moving parts start to make sense gradually in a steadily growing storyline. I highly recommend you watch the film without descriptions, spoilers or even watching the trailer so you linger a bit more in the dark, trying to anchor to Kleber's few hints until the story is fully exposed.

The charm of this nearly three-hour, sprawling film is that, despite my complete lack of understanding of the causes and consequences -- due to my unfamiliarity with both the director and Brazilian history -- I found myself watching it with great interest. The inherent fascination of the human interactions is embedded within the narrative yet beyond simply telling the story. This might be the best illustration of the difference between "narrative" and "storytelling". The dialogue is extensive but never tiresome or wordy, which is a rare treat among the selection of films at this year's festival.

This film tells its story out of chronological order, and while the structure isn't too hard to follow, it doesn't create the smoothest or most natural flow. The constant shifts in time can feel a little distracting, and some viewers might find themselves less absorbed because of it.

The pacing also gets in the way. The movie starts off very slowly, almost to the point where it's hard to stay engaged, and it takes a long time before anything really starts happening. Even when the story finally gains some momentum, it never becomes especially emotional. It remains simple and grounded, which can work well for a period drama, especially one that aims for realism. And to be fair, the film does a great job capturing the look and feel of the time period with detailed, believable imagery.

Still, as good as the visuals are, the story itself feels pretty thin. There isn't a lot of depth, and it's hard to feel truly connected to what's going on. Because of that, the movie ends up being more impressive to look at than enjoyable to watch.

One creative choice that doesn't land very well is using the same actor to play both the father and, years later, the son. It's a bold idea, but it comes across as a bit cliché and doesn't really add anything meaningful to the story. If anything, it pulls you out of the experience.

Overall, this period drama is well-made and visually strong, but its pacing, plot, and character choices leave plenty of room for improvement.

Not so easy to categorize this movie. Even though mystery threads through the entire story, The Secret Agent expands far beyond genre. Comedy, folklore, political critique, historical reconstruction and intimate drama crash into one another with intention, giving the film a bold, high-energy identity that refuses to sit still. Kleber Mendonça Filho crafts a deeply personal narrative rooted in Recife, each chapter functioning like a self-contained regional myth filled with allegories, tension and cultural memory.

Wagner Moura is outstanding as Marcelo, a tech professor who returns to his hometown while running from a violent past in São Paulo. As he tries to protect his young son Fernando, he finds refuge with Dona Sebastiana, played with luminous warmth by Tânia Maria. She becomes the film's emotional anchor, embodying the maternal, welcoming force that shelters the marginalized and turns pain into community.

The film doesn't avoid Brazil's open wounds. A chapter referencing the death of a child in 2020 and another confronting blatant academic xenophobia reveal how Mendonça Filho uses these stories not as exposition, but as lived reminders of what the country still refuses to face. Marcelo's search for any document that proves his mother existed becomes a metaphor for a broader national amnesia: the memories erased, the histories neglected, the identities lost under the weight of time and authoritarianism.

You'll frustrate yourself expecting a conventional thriller or a spy narrative. This is something else entirely: a film that goes full throttle in its ideas, trusting its striking cinematography and daring screenplay to shape an experience far from formula, the work of a director at his most confident.

An ode to memory: the ones we chase, the ones we distort, and the ones that disappear if no one insists on remembering. When Fernando admits he no longer remembers his father, the film quietly lands its message: forgetting isn't just personal, it's national.

"The Secret Agent" is a movie I recently watched at the Brazilian Film Festival. Before diving into the storyline, I must caution you-this is absolutely not suitable for children or for anyone sensitive to graphic content. The film contains harrowing murders toward the conclusion, and its tone is undeniably bleak... as intended.

The narrative unfolds in Brazil during the 1970s, a time when the country was under military rule since 1964. The police are portrayed uniformly as corrupt and malicious. One of their targets is a man who, as you discover, has committed no crime whatsoever-he simply crossed paths with a powerful and ruthless figure. Much of the film follows his attempts to remain hidden while vicious pursuers hunt him down.

Is this the formula for a lighthearted movie? Certainly not. But it is skillfully crafted and sheds light on a historical era many may not be familiar with-but should be. It's a well-executed, somber film that may leave you emotionally exhausted once the credits roll.

We understand from the first scene of a gas station and dead body that this is not a 'serious' film. It is a Brasilian story and in that regard needs to interpreted with that cultural and historical context. Hairy legs, Carnival death tolls, police chief's, a home for refugees, free sex all make for a 1970 political telenovela set in Recife. This is not a slow burn, it is just slow with lots of useless set pieces which look great but don't propell the story further. The film did win the best director and best actor award in Cannes which are both very much influenced by the jury and not necessarily by their abilities even though Wagner Moura is outstanding as always. Don't listen to critics, the film is just okay.

I don'tunderstand the hype with this movie, it must be just a nationalistic one, or because Moura is the main character,but this is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. Great production and great actors, but what a terrible screenplay. After one hour (!!!) you still don't know what the film is about, what the conflict is. More than half of the it does not bring anything to the story and are just random scenes, with interesting characters and great cinematography, yes, but leading nowhere. I saw it in the cinema and it really felt like a lost of time and money.

The Secret Agent delivers a solid narrative supported by strong performances and well-chosen cast. The film builds multiple layers of dramatic depth, with Wagner Moura standing out in a consistently compelling lead role. However, its excessive runtime at times slows the pace, and the final sequence feels less impactful.