Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho
Starring: Wagner Moura, Carlos Francisco, Tânia Maria, Robério Diógenes, Enzo Nunes, Gabriel Leone, Roney Villela, Kaiony Venâncio, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Thomás Aquino, Alice Carvalho, Hermila Guedes, Isabél Zuaa, Italo Martins, Igor de Araújo, Laura Lufési, Isadora Ruppert, Luciano Chirolli, Udo Kier, Suzy Lopes, Gregorio Graziosi, Marcelo Valle, Licínio Januário, Robson Andrade
Running Time:161 min.
Rating: R
**This Review Contains Major Plot Spoilers**
★★★★ (out of ★★★★)
Unconventional in nearly every sense, the ambitious Brazilian political drama The Secret Agent will take a while to process when it's over, spanning generations while taking place against a period backdrop that carries massive cultural and historical implications. At its center is an everyman on the run, attempting to evade a government trying to persecute him simply because they can. Disguising and adapting as necessary, he's not exactly alone in this fight, but still forced to look over his shoulder at every turn.
Though he isn't yet fully aware, this protagonist's already perilous situation will go from bad to worse as director Kleber Mendonça Filho's slow burn thriller subverts all expectations, even when a seriously suspenseful stretch of tension and violence goes sideways in its third act. Hypnotically shot and masterfully acted, it employs an unusual structure that lays its pieces on the table before the whole puzzle comes together midway through. Distinctly human in the quirkiest, most inventive of ways, it seems destined to benefit from repeated viewings after all the dots connect and you look back in appreciation at the tinier details that make it so unique.
It's 1977 under Brazil's military dictatorship and ex-academic Armando (Wagner Moura) travels back to Recife during Carnival holiday, visiting young son Fernando (Enzo Nunes), who's been living with his late wife's parents. Arriving at a refuge run by former anarcho-communist Dona Sebastiana (Tânia Maria), he adopts the alias "Marcelo" and befriends the building's other political dissidents before being placed in a job at the identification institute. But while the position gives him an opportunity to search for information on his deceased mother, it fails to offer any protection or anonymity, risking exposure to corrupt police chief Euclides (Robério Diógenes) and his thuggish sons.
Though he's suspicious of Armando, Euclides takes him under his wing, despite having his hands full with an investigation into a severed leg recently found inside a tiger shark. But as Armando tries to lay low, he's informed by resistance leader Elza (Maria Fernanda Cândido) that a contracted hit was put out on him by a powerful, politically connected executive he crossed. With the assassins rapidly closing in, Armando prepares to flee, while in the present day two history students sift through audio recordings and newspaper clippings in an effort to uncover what happened to him decades ago.
The opening minutes immediately grab hold as Armando pulls his VW Beetle into a remote gas station where he sees a dead man lying on the ground covered in cardboard, casually dismissed by an attendant who claims to have contacted authorities days ago. That a corpse pumped full of bullets is viewed as such an innocuous, commonplace annoyance by every passerby but the sad eyed Armando is exactly the point, if not eerie foreshadowing.
When police do arrive, it's not for that, but unfounded suspicions about Armando, who they briefly interrogate, expecting a monetary "donation' in return. With this, the tension builds in an oppressive heat you can almost feel and smell, not only setting the mood for what follows, but introducing us to the bearded Armando, who we still know nothing about. Projecting a cool, calm demeanor, he flies just under the radar, saddled with the unfortunate luck of still somehow drawing attention wherever he goes.
Armando's hometown return is accompanied by a barrage of the area's sights and sounds, from the bright yellow pod-like phone booths to the nightmare inducing Carnival costumes he can't seem to shake. "Haunted" is the best adjective to describe his justifiably paranoid state of mind that's briefly eased by safe house residents like Angolan Civil War refugees Thereza Vitória (Isabél Zuaa) and Antonio (Licínio Januário) and single mother Claudia (Hermila Guedes).
In a cast large enough to fill a medium sized arena, it's Tânia Maria's scene stealing turn as the house's chain smoking, grandmotherly-like Dona Sabastiana that leaps off the screen, with the 79 year-old actress investing her character with an unmistakable mix of spunk, humor and sage wisdom. Regardless of backgrounds or cultures, everyone's met someone like her, making it even more perplexing she was overlooked at awards time for the kind of blunt, disarmingly entertaining performance voters usually reward.
One of the odder touches Filho employs are these Tarantinoesque grindhouse diversions that serve a greater thematic purpose than you'd expect from scenes that clash so harshly with the film's meditative tone. The public's lurid fascination with the shark incident may be a distraction, but it's the sort of one this whole narrative is built on, showing the bizarre lengths this military dictatorship will go to cover crimes and bury evidence. Because of it, the regime's brutality recedes into the background, replaced instead by a wacky urban mystery.
The same can be said for the more jarring, fantastical park sequence that comes later, which could just have easily been lifted from a B-horror movie like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. And again the ridiculousness is intentional as Filho shows how those in control write the playbook, anticipating that everyone will swallow whatever misinformation is shoveled out. Some will while others won't, but the latter group hardly matters since they can't fight back anyway. And no one knows this better than the arrogantly crooked Euclides, who moves past his initial suspicions of Armando to take him under his wing. But the dirty chief's on a cruel power trip that becomes more blatant with his harassment of Jewish Holocaust survivor Hans (Udo Kier in his final role), much to Armando's veiled disgust.
Stuck between a rock and hard place, Armando needs to humor the chief somewhat, both to protect his identity and possibly earn a degree of trust and cover. But even he underestimates just how widespread and corrosive the corruption is, trickling down to even the most local levels of government. And Euclides isn't even the Big Bad, ranking relatively low on a food chain that extends to the very top, where Armando's greatest threat resides, plotting to take him out.
The bond Armando shares with son Fernando and theater projectionist father-in-law Sr. Alexandre (Carlos Francisco) is a tragic one, due mostly to the loss of the woman they all loved and mother this young boy fears he's already forgetting. They can't truly be a family with her gone, especially as this deadly threat hangs over Armando, keeping him a half step away from another fake passport and new identity.
The film transforms when Elza records Armando's testimony and we flash back to the chilling clash he has with a regime influenced executive (Luciano Chirolli) over his scientific research. We see how the escalating feud grows uglier and more personal, culminating in a dinner confrontation that features a brief but unforgettably explosive turn from Alice Carvalho in her only full scene as the late Fátima.
Everything goes south when stepfather and son hitman duo Augusto (Roney Villela) and Bobbi (Gabriel Leone) arrive, chaotically compromising Armando's escape with a reckless gunman (Kaiony Venâncio) who eyes his target. What unfolds next has caused audience debate, with Filho earning No Country For Old Men comparisons for his decision not to show Armando's eventual fate, revealing the death secondhand through a newspaper article discovered decades later by history student Flavia (Laura Lufési). But it works, mostly for making a larger thematic point about how history gets written or sometimes even rewritten by the winners.
The treatment of Armando's murder as an afterthought may not carry the dramatic electricity many envisioned as the film's action ramps up in the final act, but it isn't intended to. Poetic tragedy comes in the burial of his story, now relegated to a forgotten tabloid piece about some "spy" or "secret agent" gunned down in the street. And it would take nearly fifty years for someone to care enough about uncovering the truth to track down the little boy it affected, in ways even he still can't fully comprehend as an adult. But what's saddest in a film so heavily reliant on the relationships between fathers and sons is how the middle-aged Fernando now has no memory of a man his life once revolved around, however briefly.
That Moura also plays this present day version of Fernando in addition to Armando's various incarnations could have come across as a cheap gimmick in the hands of a lesser accomplished actor. But he's equally believable as the grown son, bringing the same authenticity to this role as he does his quietly compelling performance as Armando, marking a rare achievement in immersive subtlety free from unnecessary theatrics.
As Fernando, the magnetic Moura is equally contained, but conflicted, with the physician struggling to process the information he's getting about a father he hardly remembers, much like Armando's faded recollection of his own mother. But instead of a paper file, he's left with Flavia's flash drive as the last remaining record of a conspiracy that's come and gone. It's likely even she'll be moving on to something else before long, leaving Armando's story in the hands of the one person left who's able to tell it.
Whether Fernando will want to know more or can even bring himself to is questionable, but at least something did survive that can't be taken away. In this case it's a core memory that follows him to this day and remains untouched by whatever lies and propaganda were spread a generation earlier. The result is a brilliant framing device sure to invoke deeper analysis about time, memory and just how easily the past gets brushed under the rug when no one's looking.
Carried by a soul stirring lead performance and a wildly eclectic cast of colorful personalities that transcend cultural and cinematic barriers, this is as far as it gets from Oscar season homework. It's also the kind of epic you could easily imagine playing in theaters during the late 70's/early 80's era it takes place, perhaps even sharing screens with the film's heavily mentioned Jaws. Seemingly transported from a time when stories of its ilk wouldn't fall through the cracks or be cynically misinterpreted, The Secret Agent ends on a final coda that separates fact from fiction, and everything else we've lost in between.
Posts
