“The Secret Agent” walked out of Cannes with four awards and is the newest work from Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho, known for “Bacurau” and “Aquarius”, featuring Wagner Moura in what might be the strongest performance of his career.
The film is political and personal, and it becomes a hypnotic portrait of Brazil in 1977. The country is bursting with life, color, fear, and uncertainty. It reminded me a little of Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” from last year, also starring Fernanda Torres, in the way it captures an entire nation’s pulse and paranoia. “The Secret Agent” grabs you from the first frame and keeps unfolding in unexpected ways.
Even with a two-hour and forty-minute runtime, it never feels slow. Filho takes his time and builds tension through detail. It is a film that rewards you for leaning in and paying attention.
We begin during Carnival week, when Marcelo, played by Wagner Moura, arrives in Recife with his young son. He is a widower, and he is not in town for celebration. He is there to disappear. Marcelo is on the run in a country ruled by corruption and informants, and danger seems to wait around every corner.
The opening scene sets the tone perfectly. Marcelo pulls into a gas station in the middle of nowhere, and a dead body is lying on the ground. Police arrive. No one speaks much, but the tension is suffocating. Filho is a master of building suspense and the world he creates feels alive, dangerous, and sensory. You can feel the humidity. You can smell the gasoline and cigarettes. You instantly understand that Marcelo cannot trust anyone.
He is in a kind of underground witness protection system that is operated by regular citizens who want to help people escape. They give him a job at an identification bureau and a place to stay. They tell him to keep his head down, but every scene reminds us how impossible that is.
Filho never spoon feeds the plot. He prefers to reveal the story through texture and atmosphere. Each detail adds a new piece to Marcelo’s past, slowly revealing the reason he is on the run. The pacing is so measured that the long runtime goes by quickly.
One of the cleverest devices in the film is the way it cuts between Marcelo’s story and present day Brazil. Two university students listen to old cassette tapes that tell his story. They pause and rewind as they try to understand the fragments. It becomes a reminder of how fragile memory is, and how easily history can disappear. Marcelo has a similar moment when he searches for his mother’s identification file, and it becomes this quiet reflection on legacy, loss, and the marks people leave behind.
Wagner Moura gives a quietly commanding performance. Marcelo is tired, smart, fearful, and constantly calculating. You can feel how long he has been living on edge. Maria Fernanda Candido adds depth as Elza, a member of the underground resistance who becomes one of his few allies.
The production and cinematography are beautifully crafted. The film looks like it truly came from the seventies, with grainy texture, period perfect sets, and immersive sound. There are small touches of humor too, like the ongoing obsession with Jaws, which had just arrived in Brazil in 1977 and becomes a running motif.
By the end, “The Secret Agent” becomes more than a political thriller. It is a moving portrait of survival, memory, and identity. It is one of the most impressive films of the year, and a reminder of how powerful world cinema can be when a filmmaker has something real to say.
Watch the full review now on The Wandering Screen with Matt Koss on YouTube.
Letter grade: A+