Movie Review: 'The Secret Agent' Astounds
Wagner Moura's talents are not exactly undercover, but this might be his breakout role
It’s Brazil in 1977 as writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s complex tragicomic film The Secret Agent begins. The country suffers under a military dictatorship; violence and corruption are rife, as illustrated in the movie’s opening scene when Marcelo (Wagner Moura) pulls into a gas station for a refill and nearly departs again with an empty tank at the sight of a dead body covered, more or less, with pieces of cardboard weighed down by rocks. (A pack of dogs worrying the corpse does nothing to dispel the mood of dread.) When the police show up moments later it’s not to deal with the body; it’s because their attention has been drawn by Marcelo’s bright yellow Volkswagen bug, and the prospect of finding a pretext to fine him and/or solicit a “donation” for Carnival, which happens to be raging just then.
(Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent. Source: Neon)
Marcelo, we soon learn, has come to his home town of Recife to avoid persecution, see his son, and try to secure a means to get out of the country. He falls in with a small group of “refugees,” people in similar straits who are facing difficulties of all sorts — including the prospect of death. It’s a time of terror and uncertainty, with the rich and powerful calling the shots and getting away with anything they feel like, murder included. Filho illustrates the point with a subplot about a human leg found in the belly of a shark — evidence of foul play perpetrated by a pair of contract killers. The horror of their casual killing (and their deft way of shelling out bribes to make problems disappear) is only deepened by the contrast of their petty chiseling, insisting on a premium price for a hit while trying to lowball the guy to whom they subcontract the dirty work.
(Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent. Source: Neon)
In another twist, the newspapers play up an instant urban legend about the leg — a supernatural vigilante that hops around and punishes society’s usual suspects (including gay guys cruising at a park) with brutal kicks. Then again, it’s also the newspapers to which a thin-skinned businessman bent on revenge turns, planting disparaging stories about Marcelo to punish him for standing up for himself and his wife years earlier, when Marcelo was in charge of a research team at a university. (The businessman has a taste for cruelty but no stomach for the work of murdering his enemies; he’s also described as having “drained university funding for his own benefit.” If that has a familiar ring, then welcome to history’s sad and cyclical nature.)
The film’s labyrinthine structure mirrors that of the country itself at a time when nothing and no one can be relied upon. Even the bad guys come in assorted shades of honorable, amoral, and incompetent. Lightening the mood of suspense are moments of pure black comedy and a love of cinema that’s personified by Marcelo’s father-in-law, a projectionist at a local cinema where Jaws has been a recent hit. (Cinema Paradiso it’s not, but there are resonances with that classic film.) Come to this movie with nothing on your mind and nothing more on your day planner except to be astonished. Moura’s work here is awards-worthy, as is the film’s ensemble, writing, and direction. He’s appeared in big movies before, but this one might be what makes him into an international star. As for Filho, if Bacurau didn’t secure his reputation as an auteur to watch for, The Secret Agent most probably will.
“The Secret Agent” is in select theaters now.