'The Secret Agent': Exploring a Vibrant, yet Violent Brazil (2025)

https://theasc.com/articles/the-secret-agent-cinematography

by tambourine_man • 4 months ago

161 64 4 months ago

anderber5• 4 months ago

The Secret Agent was not an easy movie for the average movie watcher. It had an unorthodox ending, graphic violence, and it's in a different language. With that said, it's too bad it wasn't able to come out with any Oscars. I can see why OBAA won quite a few awards.

pearlsontheroad• 4 months ago

Having grown up in Brazil in the 70s, I thought the cinematography of "The Secret Agent" absolutely nailed the aesthetics of that era.

forinti3• 4 months ago

Kleber Mendonça Filho's other films are great at analysing modern Brazil.

bugglebeetle• 4 months ago

Bacurau is one of the best movies I’ve seen in recent memory and Pictures of Ghosts tells an amazing story about the history of Recife’s relationship to cinema.

padjo• 4 months ago

Bacurau was quite a trip. I left that one pleasingly befuddled.

aeciorc• 4 months ago

Neighboring Sounds is my favourite. It's the only movie I've ever watched that captures the psychology of living in a violent city: the mental load of constantly being in fear that something might happen to you, likely not today, but probably someday.

matheusmoreira• 4 months ago

I liked Bacurau. The villains were a little stupid though. At some point after the brazilians mounted an armed resistance the americans basically gave up and started killing each other instead for no reason.

Still an extremely subversive film for modern Brazil which is dominated by a brand of leftism that wants to disarm the population. Without weapons, the americans would have genocided Bacurau and literally wiped it off the map.

Mobius01• 4 months ago

I grew up in the 80s/90s further south, and still the film was very much a high fidelity memory playing on-screen. The production design will never be fully appreciated by people that didn’t live that time, it was truly special.

beepbooptheory• 4 months ago

One thing I noticed is that both this and another incredible film this year, Sirāt, were, at least in part, funded by a grants and state institutions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir%C4%81t

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Agent_(2025_film)

If you haven't seen either, highly recommended. Don't watch Sirat if you're wanting a "good time," but I honestly can't think of the last time a film made me feel the way it did, especially the final minutes of it.

The Secret Agent is maybe as good though. Makes you want to say "they don't make them like this anymore.." It feels like a good long novel; every character, however minor, is rich, full of life, in some way beautiful. It's something about how the past has these pockets of clarity, bookended by loose ends and uncertainty. The mix of myth and anecdote. Pieces of life we can remember, those we can't... Five bags of popcorn.

FuriouslyAdrift• 4 months ago

Another movie that kind of slid under the radar but is very watchable (and mainstream) is Nuremberg. It's just entertaining without trying to be too much. It's not "great" but it's not bad, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_(2025_film)

nl• 4 months ago

One thing I noticed is that both this and another incredible film this year, Sirāt, were, at least in part, funded by a grants and state institutions.

Aren't almost all films partially funded by grants and state institutions?

For example the MPAA publishes guides like [1], and if you watch the credits of most films at the end you'll see "thanks to XYZ" where it was filmed.

Even if you film in Hollywood itself you are eligible for tax rebates[1]

[1] https://www.motionpictures.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Ol...

[2] https://www.ep.com/blog/california-expands-film-tax-incentiv...

haunter• 4 months ago

Decent film but to me 'I'm Still Here' (Ainda Estou Aqui) was still a too fresh experience from last year to have a similar film again from Brazil set in the 70s covering the military dictatorship. I also think that I'm Still Here is a much better film.

forinti3• 4 months ago

I definitely like that film, especially the acting and the music, but I think that, as with most material that covers that era (arts, history, journalism), it focuses on the middle and the upper classes.

The poor get a footnote: what happened to Zezé? But the poor were the biggest losers of the dictatorship. It was at the precise moment that the country needed to modernise that the coup made everything stop and the favelas grew along with violence in the periphery. Maybe City of God is a better depiction of what the dictatorship meant.

marcosdumay2• 4 months ago

It's just now starting to become common knowledge that the military dictatorship didn't industrialize Brazil. On most circles, saying that it deindustrialized the country will surprise every single person, and get immediately rejected as false by a large share.

Propaganda is a hell of a thing. We are not even close to start that discussion, so it mostly won't appear anywhere.

calmkeepai• 4 months ago

The immersion into the time and place was fantastic, the surreal elements being bold , outlandish, and unexpected were great. The time jump at the end was interesting. a great piece of work that some felt divided over as a general audience but overall memorable and ambitious

basiliobeltran• 4 months ago

One of the strongest movie start sequences in a while, it immediately sets the vibe.

hash07e• 4 months ago

the vibe of snoozefest

mda• 4 months ago

It didn't set the vibe though, After the strong start it is slow, wobbly and incoherent. It is ok, but could be much better.

next_xibalba2• 4 months ago

I watched both The Secret Agent and One Battle After Another (didn’t see any of the other nominees). For me, The Secret Agent was definitely better.

anderber5• 4 months ago

I wonder how many in the Academy actually watched The Secret Agent. I've heard before that a lot don't watch all the movies before making their picks.

next_xibalba2• 4 months ago

Starting this year, an academy member was required to watch all films in a category in order to vote on that category. I’m sure compliance was not perfect, but it seems a much better process than the honor system.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/awards/story/2025...

zemvpferreira3• 4 months ago

I found it unsatisfying. Such a strong opening let down by a meandering movie with no payoff. Made all the sadder by great moments and performances spread thinly through the 2-something hours. I remember coming out of the movie theatre thinking there was a really enjoyable film buried underneath the crud if they could have had more restraint in the editing room. To each their own I suppose.

cassepipe• 4 months ago

Yes, I was a big fan of Bacurau and it works well as a fable but this one is very grounded historically and even with a basic knowledge of Brazilian history of this era I spent too much time wondering what was happening and why (even though I did understand everything, it's not cryptic either, just the rythm feels a bit off)

Excellent aesthetics though but I am less sensitive to that

andrepd• 4 months ago

Having no payoff is the payoff. After everything that's happened to him, he is killed offscreen and his son, now an adult, doesn't even quite remember him.

The journey is the point, basically :) The scenes with the fellow "refugees" are great, insightful glimpses into Brasil, into that 1970s Brasil in particular. They don't need to lead anywhere in particular for me to enjoy it.

That being said, I did like Bacurau and Aquarius more than The Secret Agent. But that speaks more to how incredible those films are.

zemvpferreira3• 4 months ago

Fair enough if you enjoyed it. I'm no stranger to the period or the director's movies and still found this one overly contrived. The tense bits are so engaging that the fantastic/anachronistic felt like it detracted from a great story.

jsunderland3233• 4 months ago

I did too. It felt like there were a bunch of subplots that never ended up tying together. The leg was the most disappointing to me.

My take home at the end was that it was supposed to show the audience that the story was recreated from the parts of the story that could be pieced together by the future journalists. Basically it felt meandering because it was meandering to the journalists trying to figure out what happened. The ending with the son was the journalist trying to tie everything together for herself but he just didn’t have the information. Still dissatisfying.

greiskul2• 4 months ago

The leg is used both as a urban legend that was told at the region at the time, but also as a metaphor. The surrealist scene where it shows the leg brutally attacking people at night: all the people attacked are prostitutes, gays, etc. People that during the dictatorship the police used to just dissappear, and society turned a blind eye to it.

And it is meant to feel meandering cause that is how this period feels for people trying to study it. There are many cases that we don't know what happened. We just know that the people were killed/disappeared. The perpetrators were never brought to Justice. We are not even sure who the specific perpetrators are in a lot of cases.

This is how the Brazilian military dictatorship operated. There are people in Brazil who want to go back to this period. They say that everything was better. The truth is that a lot of stuff that was bad, was so bad that we don't even have the records to properly reconstruct what happened.

anderber5• 4 months ago

Part of what it was trying to speak on was how truth and stories were lost during the dictatorship. What you felt was what a lot of Brazilians felt. Like part of them (or movie) was missing and they'll never be whole.

rurban• 4 months ago

I found it the 2nd best movie of the year, right behind House of Dynamite.

Brazil has so much to catch up compared to Argentina, which jailed most of the generals. This one tries it differently, not directing the blame directly, but one bystander who took advantage. Much better than I'm Still Here. But the Argentinian fascism era movie are much better still. El bunaerense, Crónica de una fuga,...

neves• 4 months ago

I've had the privilege to watch it at São Luis movie theater in Recife. The place is really a character of the movie. The theater was at full capacity. 10% of the public was with a yellow t-shirt that Wagner Moura uses for 10s :-) I forgot how good it was to see movies in a theater. Everybody laughed or clapped together. I've never more seen a movie with so much popular appeal. People seeing their lives and history in the big screen. If it had won an Oscar, maybe São Luiz would exhibit it frequently. Like the Casablanca theater in Morocco that just exhibits Casablanca movie.

Pure cinema.

ShamblingMound• 4 months ago

Secret Agent has a slow, difficult beginning (~hour). Not much happens. And it's not clear why what's happening is happening, particularly for someone unfamiliar with Brazil's political climate in the 1970s.

As someone who's never been to Brazil, certainly not in the 1970s, watching Secret Agent still felt like being transported there. How did they make a movie that makes you feel like you're in a familiar place you've never been to?

And then after about an hour, it picks up a bit more, and by the end, it felt like they directly transmitted to the audience the horror of the Brazilian junta in all kinds of subtle and dramatic ways. We don't see the resolution of the main character's story because that moment is lost. Memories of his life are fractured (through disjointed audio recordings) or repressed (by those closest to him).

Hard to put it into words. I started out disliking it and ended up loving it.

anderber5• 4 months ago

Felt the same as you. It felt like you didn't quite understand what was happening or what was going to happen in the beginning. Only for you to miss the characters by the end.

bananamerica• 4 months ago

Secret Agent has a slow, difficult beginning (~hour). Not much happens. And it's not clear why what's happening is happening, particularly for someone unfamiliar with Brazil's political climate in the 1970s.

That's very much the director's philosophy. He values the dead time between things. I saw him talk years ago. He's a bit of an intelectual. Very competent too. I haven't watched Secret Agent yet though.

Beto Brant is another Brazilian director. He is phenomenal. Also artsy but his films usually work on a more traditional level as well. They're more satisfying. I highly recommend him -- particularly "O Invasor", "Ação Entre Amigos" and "Crime Delicado".

jbrozena22• 4 months ago

Well said. I felt similar

tyre• 4 months ago

Good to know it pays off. I turned it off after 45+ minutes because I was falling asleep.

The world was impressive and immersive, but felt more like being on a tour than living a narrative.

ymgch• 4 months ago

That movie was an absolute snooze-fest—way too slow and dull. I actually went to the theater with high hopes, but 15 minutes in, I felt like scrubbing the toilet would’ve been more fun. It’s a shame Brazilian cinema is so stuck on such a tired trope like the dictatorship era. Enough already. That’s a oranje that’s been squeezed dry. But I wouldn't bet against another one popping up this year... At least I won't make the mistake of wasting my money and time on the same old cinematic garbage again.

gchamonlive• 4 months ago

Considering Brazil almost suffered a coup just recently and the last president was convicted and jailed because of the attempt, how is it not a very much recent theme?

Maybe you didn't like the movie, but it's got nothing to do with the theme of the movie.

elzbardico• 4 months ago

It is a shame, but culturally Brazil can't let the 60's go.

Americans may complain about their boomers, but American boomers can't handle a candle to the obstinate grip Brasilian boomers have on the brazilian imaginarium and culture.

Imagine if every single hollywood movie done nowadays was kind of a pastiche of Antonioni's Blow Up, and if the Grateful Dead were the great gatekeepers of popular culture. Every single new cultural movement either paid homage to their style and their culture or run the risk of being discarded. In a certain way, that's how Brazilian culture works. Add the fact that culture is highly politicized, because a big part of it needs to be financed by the state and you have the perfect recipe for movies like "The Secret Agent".

There's also a certain societal expectation that for being considered part of the elite you need to be thoroughly versed on the political and cultural dynamics of the period. If you are a Brazilian you won't criticize those productions, lest you be seen as the brazilian version of the "deplorables", and you don't want to do it in your urban professional upper middle classe environment.

And this lead us to another very common issue. As being well versed on the vicissitudes and cultural zeitgeist of the period is seen as an elite signal, th stories will always be hard to understand for the non-initiated. And this is almost proposital, a certain manner of gatekeeping, because, while brazilian cinema wants to make as much money as American cinema, it absolutely abhors the idea of not being sophisticated, full of hermetic references for the non-conoisseur.

Watch the other comments on this thread. International audiences feels lost, while the Brazilians keep playing softball amongst them while exchanging their precious references that nobody else knows, including most brazilian not privileged enough to have had money to do their basic education on expensive private schools and then conclude their education for free on high quality publi universities.

d0100• 4 months ago

In a certain way, that's how Brazilian culture works

That's how Brazilian media conglomerate culture works

nwatson• 4 months ago

I spent the early 70s and early 80s in Brazil. I left at around the time of the abertura in 1984 when we lost a semester at UnB due to the student and faculty strikes. It was convenient that my family was coming to the USA. There's a lot I missed while living in Brazil but I've enjoyed watching Peninha (Eduardo Bueno) explain Brazilian history on his "Buenas [sic] Ideias" YouTube channel.

He spends a lot of time on the 1960s and the "milicos escrotos" (f'in military folks) who took over at the time, but he's written a number of books on Brazilian history and has an entertaining style.

lisdexan3• 4 months ago

Chilean here, totally understandable by paying attention. I didn't even know Brazil was under dictatorship in '77. The whole point of the secret agent framing is that it works better if you don't know much about the setting.

Are you sure your opinion isn't being colored by culture war bullshit?

jazzpush23• 4 months ago

Better than Marvel film reworks.

iammrpayments• 4 months ago

I liked it, but I didn’t understand how it became so successful abroad. A lot of the plot makes no sense if you’re not familiar with Brazil.

lisdexan3• 4 months ago

Not really familiar with Brazil (although I am with military juntas) but I think the spy misdirect helps a lot. If you are slightly observant you will get the gist by the middle of the movie. The spy thriller aspect avoids making the uncertainty frustrating until then.

Obviously by judging the comments it doesn't work for everyone, specially the leg scene confusing a lot people, which I didn't expect tbh. Gay bashing cops isn't a dictatorship only thing.

aristofun2• 4 months ago

One of the boring and meaningless movies I ever seen. No arc, no coherent story, (almost) no humor, no development, no intrigue, nothing.

Only nice picture - then it qualifies as a good YouTube video, not really a movie. Because movies have some laws of the genre, this thing doesn’t even break any laws like great art does sometimes. It just presents a series of visially appealing but fundamentally dumb clips.

I envy people who have so much spare time to waste it on this so called art.

lisdexan3• 4 months ago

One of the boring and meaningless movies I ever seen. No arc, no coherent story, (almost) no humor, no development, no intrigue, nothing.

I understand finding the movie too long or difficult to follow without historical context, or even just not feeling it. But if this is your conclusion after the last scene, you either didn't watch it or are being contrarian.

aristofun2• 4 months ago

Yes I didn’t finish it. If only few scenes are worth watching it’s not a movie it’s a bunch of clips

prajaybasu• 4 months ago

I rarely leave movies midway through, but this one was too much for whatever the payoff was supposed to be. I'd rather sit through Cats (2020).

'The Secret Agent': Exploring a Vibrant, yet Violent Brazil (2025)

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