As The Secret Agent begins, Marcelo (Wagner Moura) stops for gas in his car and encounters a corpse. Just outside the gas station, a man's body has been lying in the sun (covered in cardboard) for days. The cops haven't shown up like they said they would to help with this matter. When the police show up, they only appear to harass Marcelo and then pressure him for "a donation", A.K.A. a bribe.
This unnamed corpse establishes writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho's fixation on memory and people's identities throughout The Secret Agent. Marcelo and the other characters are scrambling for information on erased souls (like Marcelo's mother) or being deemed less than human by Brazil's military dictatorship. Which existences endure under these conditions? How do lives reverberate into the future in these challenging eras? How do they not become just lost, unnamed individuals sizzling in the sun?
This is the compelling crux of The Secret Agent, which follows Marcelo reaching the city of Recife. This is where Dona Sebastiana (Tânia Maria) gives him shelter, along with other "refugees" and societal outcasts. While Marcelo tries sharing his story (and specifically how he and other former teachers were demonized by the government) with select people and searching for details on his mother, trouble brews. In this "time of mischief" (as opening on-screen text describes Brazil circa. 1977), a pair of assassins has been hired to kill Marcelo.
In his breakdown of Ralph Bashki's Lord of the Rings movie, film critic Dan Olson remarks that one great element of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films was how they emphasized the beauty of Middle-Earth. This made the central mission to save the realm extra urgent because, as Olson puts it, "the world is beautiful and worth fighting for."
I got that kind of vibe again in The Secret Agent when Marcello sits down at a window in his father-in-law's movie theater (where his deceased wife Fatima "loved to sit") and observes the city of Recife just bustling and existing. Director Kleber Mendonça Filho lingers on this quiet image to signify the gloriousness of this locale and all the memories Marcello has intertwined in this locale. The wonders and people of this city are why it's essential to fight authoritarianism.
Surprising nobody, Bacurau and Neighboring Sounds director Kleber Mendonça Filho has delivered another all-time banger with The Secret Agent. Here is a sumptuous feast of a movie so rich in artistic virtues I don't even know where to begin in extolling its virtues. How about Wagner Moura's richly lived-in performance? Just in his eyes, there's so much more depth and tangible humanity than 95% of 2025 leading men. How fitting this film is set in 1977, since he evokes 70s American movie stars like Al Pacino and John Cazale in the transfixing, lived-in reality he exudes.
How about the film's emphasis on the humanity and intricate personalities of the various "refugees" struggling to survive under a dictatorship? Filho's narrative emphasizes quiet scenes of characters like Marcelo, an Angolan couple, Thereza Vitória (Isabél Zuaa) and Antonio (Licínio Januário), and Clóvis (Robson Andrade) just listening to music and chatting. The vibrant personalities the dictatorship seeks to squash are vibrantly alive in these engaging dialogue-heavy sequences. Compare this tender, intimate approach to Angelina Jolie's trauma-exclusive depiction of working-class people enduring the Bosnian War in In the Land of Blood and Honey. One of these films sees its central subjects as people, another sees them as just punching bags for torment.
How about the fact that The Secret Agent builds a propulsive chase scene around flute music? I was practically kicking my feet up in glee at those kinds of inspired musical cues! Ditto any uses of split-diopter shots, Brian de Palma would be proud. Oh, and let's not forget about the exquisite non-linear storytelling. I had no clue prior to watching Agent that this saga occasionally jumps forward to 2025. Here, a pair of adult women is analyzing Marcelo-centric audio files and newspaper clippings. This bold storytelling elements both keeps viewers on their toes (you truly never know where this film is going next) and shows how the horror of oppression lingers forever and ever, including into the modern world.
The Secret Agent is full of bold choices like that. Just look at the unnerving editing in a late nightmare sequence, one key interview scene where Filho's script travels across three different points in time, or even that flute-oriented chase sequence music. Though clearly homaging classic political thrillers, these idiosyncratic flourishes give The Secret Agent a compelling life of its own. This is a motion picture so confident in itself that it can heavily evoke Jaws without leaving viewers just wishing they were watching Jaws instead. All this ceaseless creativity creates a perfectly unpredictable artistic form for a story about people navigating the chaos of existence under authoritarianism. It also just makes for magnificently absorbing cinema.
Oh! And those colors! I won't soon forget cinematographer Evgenia Alexandrova's name, she does magnificent work with Secret Agent's camerawork and color scheme. I love how every room, costume, and car in this movie is covered in bright hues that just pop off the screen. Folks like production designer Thales Junqueira and costume designer Rita Azevedo's work is so vibrant without diluting the film's intensity. With this visual approach, The Secret Agent carves out a distinct identity compared to other political thrillers with its backdrops evoking Jacques Demy more than Alan J. Pakula. Other movies shot digitally, take note of The Secret Agent's radiant color scheme and period-appropriate lived-in look.
Even the fun scene transition wipes radiate personality. Equally entertaining are the displays of working-class people working together in the shadows, which effectively evoke similar scenes from classics like Hangmen Also Die! Performers like Tânia Maria (she's such a hoot as a 77-year-old whose been "smoking for 60 years!") lend countless transfixing qualities to these members of the proletariat. Carlos Francisco as Sr. Alexandre is another standout in the ensemble cast. I just got so invested in this kindhearted fellow, and Francisco absolutely nails a quiet scene where Sr. Alexandre inquires about a personal detail in Marcelo's story.
Speaking of great Secret Agent performance, Alica Carvalho crushes it in her one big scene as Fátima, Marcelo's deceased wife. If there's anything better in cinema than women yelling at corrupt men and putting them in their place, I've yet to find it. Carvalho's commanding screen presence and dynamic line deliveries left me spellbound. All the roses for Alica Carvalho and all the other Secret Agent cast members seared into my memory even with minimal screentime.
All my babblings should make it clear: there's so much to marinate in during this outstanding work. This title excels as a meditation on memory as well as how and what stories and people endure throughout history. It's also a bravura political thriller full of audacious touches befitting of a man who brought the world Bacurau (just look at a sequence involving the antics of a disembodied leg). Everything works here on so many levels, and it's truly wondrous to witness. Experience The Secret Agent on a big screen ASAP and soak in a movie as beautiful as Marcello's view of Recife in that window.
P.S. What a wonderful birthday gift (I saw Secret Agent on my 30th birthday, December 19th) to see one last iconic Udo Kier performance on the big screen. Reuniting with Kleber Mendonça Filho after their electric work together on Bacurau, Kier's one-scene appearance reaffirms how he was the king of making the most of even scant screentime. Here, he portrays a Jewish survivor of World War II (tormented by a corrupt police captain) who reflects how pervasive fascism and dehumanization are throughout history. Kier lends each of his lines such potent impact, while he brilliantly communicates his character's strained, contemptuous relationship with that law enforcement officer through the most restrained of body language.
Rest in peace Udo Kier. Your amazing Secret Agent performance is yet another reminder that the world of cinema will be a little less magical without you in it.
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