In the aftermath of the 2022 Brazilian election, in which former President Jair Bolsonaro instigated a military coup d'état after his loss, the nation’s active cinema community responded with films that tackled the country’s history of fascism. American political thrillers often examine events within recent history, which has made them vulnerable to reactionary instincts; comparatively, Brazilian anti-fascist films such as Argentina, 1985 and I’m Still Here were able to reflect on the culture that predicted Bolsonaro through a depiction of the nation’s military dictatorship, which ended after over two decades in 1985. Despite the weighty subject material, Argentina, 1985 and I’m Still Here are both effective crowd pleasers that instilled faith in the notion that those who resisted oppression would be remembered.
Writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho had been a rising star within Brazil’s arthouse circles prior to the chaos of the Bolsonaro administration, and stirred up controversies based on his adamant political opinions. The debut of Filho’s 2016 feature Aquarius attracted protests from the supporters of former President Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment that claimed the film was anti-patriotic; even Filho’s bizarre sci-fi western Bacaru dealt with the country’s sparsity of natural resources. It might’ve been easy to anticipate that a weighty espionage thriller would be a continuation of those themes, but The Secret Agent was born out of work that Filho did on the documentary Pictures of Ghosts, which explored the lifespan of a movie house in his hometown of Recife.
Filho saw his local theater as a window into imagination, creativity, connectivity, and most importantly, “mischief.” “Mischief” is mentioned explicitly within the opening title cards of The Secret Agent, a fictional historical epic centered on the former school teacher Armando (Wagner Moura), who’s become a political refugee in Recife after the death of his wife. Although his son, Fernando, is raised by his projectionist father-in-law Sr. Alexandre (Carlos Francisco), Armando’s offered protection through a new job at the city’s social registration archive. Armando’s proximity to a political index had made him of value to resistance fighters who feud with the corrupt local cops, but also made him a target for his vengeful former adversaries.
The Secret Agent doesn’t have the straight line of a political thriller like The Parallax View or Three Days of the Condor; Armando’s mission is rooted in survival, and the film doesn’t suggest that he’s directly involved in the downfall of the authoritarian regime. Rather, The Secret Agent’s suggestion is that those that survived the brutality of this period were heroes, rebels, and “secret agents” because they preserved elements of culture that would be resurrected by the Federative Republic of Brazil. The film’s often atmospheric in its allusions to unusual phrases and codewords used by resistors to avoid attention by the authorities, but the direct connections to the present are revealed by a thoughtful finale, which is one of the more sentimental (yet not saccharine) conclusions to any Filho film.
The pressure put upon Armando is felt throughout The Secret Agent because of the contrivances involved in maintaining a second identity, conceiving a false backstory, and masking any connections to suspicious individuals. Even if there’s a playful, caper-esque sense of the same “mischief” Filho’s enamored with during Armando’s tricky run-ins, there isn’t a point in which the stakes are undone by genre conventions. Violence is brutal and unremarked upon in The Secret Agent, with visceral executions committed by the militia used infrequently as a reminder of why Armando has gone to such great lengths to avoid detection.
The Secret Agent is so specific in its references to specific landmarks, holidays, and customs that it could’ve been mistaken for a biopic; even if Filho’s own childhood was an occasional inspiration, there’s an extraordinary amount of imagination within the various misadventures that Armando is inserted into. Most amusing is the disposal of a human leg into a river by two hitmen, which is followed by a brutal killing spree; although the murders were committed by corrupt police officers, newspapers used the phrase “hairy leg” as a stand-in so that the cops wouldn’t interrogate their publication. Since The Secret Agent is a film impeded with secret codes, an actual dismembered leg is seen brutally dismembering civilians cruising in a public park in a sequence that’s stylistically derived from the splatter horror of early-Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson.
Maybe it’s counterintuitive to suggest that The Secret Agent is a “hangout film,” but the sprawling nature of its scope allowed for detours into the various idiosyncrasies of Armando's integration. The sporadic pacing is intentional, but Filho’s rarely fixated on a subplot that doesn’t in some way speak to the unyielding survivalism of the Brazilian people. It’s fitting that one of the key places that Armando is called to in order to exchange information is a movie theater that bears a striking resemblance to the one featured in Pictures of Ghosts. There’s more than a few homages to 1970s classics that inspired Filho, with an extended tribute to Jaws the most rewarding.
The blend of whimsy, pulpiness, and authentically crystal-eyed optimism of The Secret Agent are anchored by the dynamic performance by Moura, whose return to Brazilian cinema earned him the Best Actor trophy at the Cannes Film Festival. Those who primarily know Moura from his chilling performance in the Netflix series Narcos may be surprised to find how charismatic his work is in The Secret Agent; Armando’s heroism is reminiscent of many 1970s screen idols, including Steve McQueen and Burt Reynolds. The Secret Agent is livelier than its premise suggests, but Moura’s performance may provide an engaging, emotional hook for those put off by the subject material.