Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho painstakingly recreates the Recife of the 70s dictatorship years in this sprawling, colourful spy thriller like no other.

Following up his incendiary crowd-pleaser Bacarau and haunting cinema memory piece Pictures of Ghosts, iconoclastic Brazilian director Kleber Mendonca Filho scored the Best Director prize at Cannes with this rousing political thriller.

An extensive, deeply immersive recreation of the Brazilian dictatorship years through the eyes of a laconic, drifting secret agent holed up in Recife, the film ripples and shimmers with vibrant colour, action and innumerable absurd tangents, yet is constantly grounded by Wagner Moura’s soulful performance which earned him Best Actor at Cannes.

The scars of dictatorship are everywhere in The Secret Agent, as is the hovering spectre of political violence; as the film unfolds with the sprawl and confidence of a great novel, and said violence draws ever closer, the mystery of just who Moura’s Marcelo actually is, slowly comes into focus.

“Wagner Moura makes a stunning return to Brazilian cinema in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s masterful period political thriller… Sure to be one of the best films of the year.” — David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

 

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