SAO PAULO — SAO PAULO (AP) — “Secret Agent” Brazilian specialty shortlisted for Oscarall about ordinary people. It tells the story of a humble scientist and widowed father who becomes a target of Brazil's military dictatorship in the 1970s – not because he is an activist or revolutionary, but because he confronts a business owner with ties to the regime.
“He is in danger simply because he is who he is, for holding the values that he holds,” the Wagner Moura star said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “This is how authoritarianism works everywhere.”
Director Kleber Mendonça FilhoHailed by critics as one of the best films of the year, The Secret Agent comes amid renewed international interest in Brazilian cinema. The film opens in US theaters on Friday and is backed by major wins at Cannes Film Festival for both Mendonça Filho (Best Director) and Moura (Best Actor).
Earlier this month, the 2.5-hour thriller opened Golden Globe nominations for Best Drama, Best Non-English Film and Best Actor in a Drama.
“Secret Agent” comes at a decisive moment for Brazilian cinema after its success “I'm still here” who won an Oscar this year for Best International Feature Film and a Golden Globe for lead actress Fernanda Torres.
In Brazil, expectations for The Secret Agent are high. Moura said the widespread enthusiasm for the film – and the public's interaction with the Brazilian artists – made him “incredibly happy.”
“No country develops without culture, without identity,” he said. “You watch a Brazilian film, you see a part of Brazil and its history. That's important.”
The film takes place in 1977, at the height of Brazil's dictatorship, and opens with a black-and-white montage of national symbols of the era, from movie classics to popular soap operas.
Mendonça Filho sets the story in a precise time and place: a carnival in Recife, the director's hometown in northeastern Brazil. As the center of his cinematic universe, the city is the site of confrontation with a country still struggling to acknowledge its past.
“We've all consumed incredible things from all sorts of places, from Akira Kurosawa in Japan to Elvis Presley in the American South,” Mendonça Filho said. “I'm Brazilian and my film is Brazilian. If it's good, it will be universal.”
Living undercover and under the alias Marcelo, Armando spends his days scouring archives for clues about his mother's past and planning to flee the country with his young son. As his silent search unfolds, the streets outside erupt in noise. carnival fun — the festival has become so integral to the life of Brazil that even the chief of police looks rumpled from the celebration, and confetti still sticks to his hair.
Mendonça Filho combines political tensions with urban legends of the period, addressing themes beyond the dictatorship itself, including corruption, state violence, and institutional complicity.
One key sequence takes place in a movie theater, a nod to the director's lifelong cinephilia. While fictional audiences leave screenings of Jaws and The Omen shocked by fictional threats, the country itself lives in conditions of real terror.
Over the past decade, Brazilian cinema increasingly returned to military dictatorship, who ruled from 1964 to 1985. Along with The Secret Agent and I'm Still Here, filmmakers returned to the period in works like Moura's Marigella, about a legendary guerrilla leader who took up arms against the regime.
Many of these films were made or released over the past decade amid the rise of far-right forces in Brazil. The most prominent figure was the former President Jair Bolsonaro, a retired army captain who praised officers accused of torture and minimized state crimes committed during the dictatorship.
Mendonça Filho is among the filmmakers who have taken it upon themselves to confront national memory.
“The military is a trauma that has never really been studied,” he said. “You can't just say, 'Move on, forget about it.' A crust forms over it. The same thing is happening to the whole nation.”
When The Secret Agent hit Brazilian cinemas on November 6, the story unfolded in real time.
Bolsonaro was arrested that same month. and began serving a 27-year prison sentence for attempting to overturn the 2022 elections after losing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. For the first time, high-ranking military officers were also jailed for participating in the attempted coup.
“Today I am much more optimistic about Brazil as a democratic country,” Mendonça Filho said. “For the first time, we are holding military officers accountable and jailing a president who has done nothing but harm the country.”
Few stories in “Secret Agent” are as astounding as that of 78-year-old Tanya Maria, who plays Doña Sebastiana.
Brazilian artisan Maria lived an ordinary life until she was 72, when she was cast as an extra in Mendonça Filho's 2019 film Bacurau. Since then, she has starred in six films that have not yet been released.
The director said he never forgot her presence – “a bird's posture, a voice shaped by 60 years of smoking, and a keen sense of humor.” Later, he wrote the role of Doña Sebastiana especially for her.
A character stands out who harbors political fugitives, including Armando. When she walks toward the camera in a floral dress, cigarette in hand, the film is hers for a moment.
“Her authenticity has something of a lot of women I’ve known,” Mendonça Filho said. “There’s something literary about it.”
Mura said he couldn't hide his admiration for the actor's sincerity. He pointed to their first scene together, in which Doña Sebastiana shows Armando the apartment he is moving into.
According to him, if viewers look closely, they will see that he really is “like a fool, revolving around her.”
Maria lives in a rural village of about 22,000 people in the northeast of Rio Grande do Norte. There is no cinema there. She says the only films she has ever seen are the ones she starred in.
For Maria, the authenticity of her performance begins with Mendonça Filho's script.
“The filming is wonderful, and it feels like Kleber Mendonça’s films are copying our lives,” she said, laughing. “Doña Sebastian's life is my life. I always liked to attract people to me, and I always liked to complain.”
Since the film's release in Brazil, the seamstress-turned-actor has become a national sensation, appearing on morning shows and gaining thousands of followers.
She's also hoping for Oscar recognition—for the film and perhaps for herself.
“I want to go to the Oscars,” she said. “And I want to sew myself a dress. It will be red, very shiny.”
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