VIFF: The Secret Agent

This film was a special presentation as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF).  In Portuguese with English subtitles, most of the story is set in Recife, Brazil, which was the main reason I wanted to see this movie. I spent a year living in Brazil with very fond memories of Recife.

I loved the locals for their vibrant spirit, warmth, and deep love for life – a cultural energy that pulses through everything from their music and food to their festivals and everyday interactions. It’s infectious. It can be referred to as “alegria”– a kind of joyful resilience that’s woven into the national identity, despite facing economic and political challenges.

However, I have one not very fond memory of the kind of corruption that I had only heard about.  My late husband was waiting for me in the car outside a store in Rio while I quickly went inside to purchase a few postcards.  A police officer came by and said he wasn’t allowed to wait there and immediately issued a ticket for $1,000 usd.  I called the concierge of the Copacabana Palace Hotel where we were staying, to find out if he could talk to the officer and reduce the ticket.  The concierge ended up coming to where we were and after some back & forth with the officer, the ticket was then reduced to about $400 – which I believe the concierge and the cop ended up splitting between them. He said “you realize that we have families right?”

Then there was the time when my young Portuguese instructor was escorted to her bank by an officer and told to withdraw all her money – at gunpoint.  This was real life – not a movie.

“The Secret Agent” synopsis from the VIFF guide:

Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat working inside of Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo (Narcos’ Wagner Moura) decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name and reconnect with his young son. Bedding in with a cadre of political dissidents and refugees while finding work in the state identification archives, the former university researcher comes to understand precisely how insidious and all-encompassing the country’s corruption has become.

GWWBK: The movie overall was interesting, but way too long. “The Secret Agent” clocks in at nearly 3 hours, with a runtime of 2 hours and 52 minutes. That extended length gives director Kleber Mendonça Filho room to explore the film’s layered themes of political paranoia, memory, and identity in meticulous detail.

Too meticulous if you ask me.  I made my Secret Exit at around the 2 hr mark.

Note to self: 1) Always check the length of the film.  2) Don’t go see a film based on the fact they you’ve either visited or lived where it was filmed (btw, in this film you won’t see anything like the photo I posted here along the beautiful beach). 3) Do more research.

Best Director, Best Actor, Cannes 2025; Oscar Submission: Brazil

Missed it at VIFF? Catch it at the VIFF Centre after the festival.