How The Secret Agent Appeals to the Brazilian Collective Memory

by

I’ve forgotten the man’s name and exactly when we met, but I still remember our conversation. It was sometime in the early 2010s, during a customer event I led for my old tech company. He was a client who had traveled to New England from the South. Over lunch and chocolate chip cookies, while others chatted about the weather, we both agreed that the world improves when people travel and experience different cultures and ways of life. We shook hands, pleased with our agreement, and then returned to the workshop.

For the past fifteen years, I’ve been trying to find the right way to describe a short but significant conversation I had in my late twenties. It turns out Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho had already perfectly captured the feeling. He recently told me, “You could have one of the best conversations of your life with a stranger – someone from Oklahoma, or southern Italy – a conversation that lasts just sixteen minutes, and then you’ll never see them again.” He added, “That’s just how life works.”

As a movie lover, when I hear “the logic of life,” I usually think of something cold and calculated. But that phrase perfectly captures the heart of Kleber Mendonça Filho’s films, and especially his latest, The Secret Agent. The film centers around Armando, played by Wagner Moura, and he’s a fascinating character – initially seeming like a classic spy, but quickly revealing himself to be a man desperately trying to escape a terrible situation. Simply calling him a man on the run doesn’t even begin to cover the complexity of what he’s dealing with. He’s a father trying to rebuild a relationship with his son, Fernando, and a former academic who’s somehow gotten caught up in a world of secrets and danger. The movie really plays with your expectations – it’s tense, then surprisingly relaxed, then suddenly tightens its grip in a way that’s genuinely unsettling. If you’re going in expecting a flashy, action-packed spy thriller, you’ll be surprised. But if you’re familiar with Mendonça Filho’s style – spacious, deliberate pacing, but always with an underlying sense of tension – you’re in for a treat.

Even viewers unfamiliar with the source material may find The Secret Agent resonates today, given the worrying rise of authoritarianism happening worldwide. The film is clearly significant and timely, as evidenced by its success at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won awards for Best Actor, Best Director, and critical acclaim. This follows the recent Academy Award win for Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here, another film focused on political unrest in Brazil. The timing of both films feels particularly powerful and captivating.

Connecting the film The Secret Agent to Brazil’s political situation means recognizing it reflects the country’s history more than its present. While Brazil is currently led by the left-leaning Workers’ Party and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the film is set in 1977, a time when the nation was under the rule of General Ernesto Geisel, a military leader who rose to power in 1974 during Brazil’s 21-year dictatorship.

It’s easy to see The Secret Agent as a film about how strong-arm politics affect people, and that’s not entirely off-base. However, director Kleber Mendonça Filho, whose father was a historian, deliberately made the film more about prompting remembrance than simply reflecting reality. Mendonça Filho notes that Brazil often struggles with its past, almost as if choosing to forget unpleasant events. Considering the late 1970s in Brazil inevitably involves the presence of President Geisel. In The Secret Agent, Geisel appears subtly through portraits featured in many scenes. He isn’t a character in the traditional sense, but rather a looming presence that creates a sense of unease.

The film features a character based on Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), but director Kleber Mendonça Filho chooses to focus on Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s former president who served from 2011 until her impeachment in 2016. Rousseff herself was tortured during the military dictatorship, and Mendonça Filho points out that when Jair Bolsonaro became president, he dismissed the work of the National Truth Commission, saying only those searching for trouble dwell on the past. This suggests that the societal forgetting Mendonça Filho describes isn’t a choice, but rather a deliberate effort by figures like Bolsonaro to suppress memories of past atrocities.

Within that setting, The Secret Agent feels like a way to relive everyday life during Geisel’s presidency, experiencing it from the perspective of ordinary people. A spy thriller set in the same period would be fun, especially if directed by Mendonça Filho – his 2020 film Bacuaru (made with Juliano Dornelles) shows his skill. Think of John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13, but located in the Brazilian backlands instead of Los Angeles. Ultimately, though, the author is interested in showing how people continue to live and thrive even under an authoritarian regime.

As a huge film fan, I’ve been really captivated by the way Kleber Mendonça Filho approaches storytelling. He talks about letting life’s own rhythm dictate the pace, rather than forcing a traditional, constantly-moving plot. He feels his stories are always moving, but in a way that feels more natural, more… real. He uses the character of Dona Sebastiana from his film as a perfect example. She’s the building’s matriarch, and while the film isn’t necessarily about ‘favorite characters,’ she’s become incredibly popular with audiences. People are fascinated by her – she’s got this wonderfully rough-around-the-edges quality and a real sense of mystery, all wrapped up in a lot of compassion. Mendonça Filho was laughing when he told me people are completely obsessed with her backstory! They’re messaging him on social media, making memes, demanding to know what she did in Italy. Apparently, she hints at a scandalous past, saying she’ll take it to the grave, but admits to doing ‘three things’ while she was there, and everyone is desperate to find out what those things are. It’s amazing how a character can capture people’s imaginations like that!

In a typical movie, a character like Sebastiana wouldn’t be allowed to casually mention her adventurous past in Italy. We might also expect a quick reveal of a mysterious detail, like the three things hinted at in the film. But Mendonça Filho clearly cares about his characters, and he creates small, memorable moments for his actors to shine. Throughout the story, you get the feeling he’s tempted to shift focus from the main character, Armando, and instead follow someone like Sebastiana, Claudia (Armando’s neighbor and lover), or Hans (a Holocaust survivor wrongly accused of being a Nazi). Life is full of detours, and this film reflects that – we see it in the way Sebastiana holds court with the refugees, or Hans dances joyfully during carnival. These little moments feel authentic and true to life.

Let me tell you, the battle for Brazil’s Oscar submission this year was…complicated. It seems business leaders actively pushed for Marianna Brennand’s Manas over my own film, The Secret Agent. The reason? Well, Manas deals with a difficult subject – child exploitation in the Amazon – and the person who holds a grudge against my protagonist used to work at a major energy company. It felt eerily familiar, because back in 2016, forces tried to block Aquarius from Oscar consideration. This time, though, it wasn’t the government, but a group of entrepreneurs. And frankly, things feel different in Brazil now, with Lula in power. I’m cautiously optimistic. I think we’re finally seeing a return to a truly democratic society. Interestingly, The Secret Agent is doing well with audiences here, despite focusing on the past – a topic many Brazilians prefer to avoid. My previous film, I’m Still Here, also resonated, becoming the highest-grossing Brazilian film since the pandemic. As a Brazilian, I understand that impulse to look forward, but as a filmmaker, I’m drawn to the past. I believe it holds endless stories and, ultimately, a deeper understanding of who we are.

Read More

2025-12-02 23:07