Is it ever truly possible to run away from the past? The idea of escaping from your own life and seeking a fresh start is often viewed as a result of needing to cover up some controversial and potentially immoral activities that are better left behind – but in some cases, it is necessary for those who need to take advantage of erasing the past. Yet, we often find that even the most well-constructed plans tend to encounter challenges, often far more challenging to overcome than the original situation. This is something that Kleber Mendonça Filho explores in The Secret Agent (Portuguese: O Agente Secreto), his fourth narrative feature and one of his strongest works to date. Set in 1977, during the final decade of the Brazilian military dictatorship, the film follows Armando, a former professor who makes the journey from São Paulo to Recife, presenting himself as Marcelo, a low-level bureaucrat who will be spending his days in a local government office. His precise reasons for needing to run away from his former self are not made clear, but he takes up residence in a housing complex run by Dona Sebastiana, whose home acts as a shelter to other political refugees, giving them sanctuary and security for as long as they can remain distant from the spectres of the past. However, it becomes clear that the danger from which Armando is running is never too far behind, leading to him growing increasingly paranoid, especially when a pair of dim-witted assassins arrive in town as well, with their own intentions. A strange and challenging film that once again underlines Mendonça’s incredible artistry and ability to create memorable scenarios from the simplest of cues. Once again voyaging to a specific time and place in his native Brazil, making some bold statements along the way, the director uses The Secret Agent as his elegy for the past, drawing on the shared collective trauma of this period in the country’s history, combining it with his acerbic and offbeat sense of humour that turns this from a simple historical drama into something much bolder and more unique than we could ever imagine.

While each of his films is different, there are a few common themes that bind Mendonça’s works together – and the core of every one of his films has been built around his fascination with his own culture. Like many of his fellow filmmakers working in contemporary Brazilian cinema, there has been a concerted effort to pay tribute to the customs and traditions, not only allowing natives to see themselves reflected in these stories, but also informing the outside world about what life was like at this particular point and in these surroundings, which is an incredibly fascinating approach and one that has often been the impetus behind the director’s fanciful forays into the medium. He doesn’t take it for granted that he has developed some arthouse credibility, which allowed him to leverage that reputation to make one of the most expensive, complex Brazilian films to date – and in every frame of The Secret Agent, we find something worth discussing. Set nearly fifty years ago, the film provides an intriguing glimpse into one of the most harrowing chapters in the country’s history, and like any oppressive regime, its usually the years towards the end of a dictatorship that tend to be the most brutal and difficult to navigate, since the violence and psychological warfare reaches an apex to the point where the only results could be either a shift in political and social order, or a complete collapse of society as a whole. Considering where Brazil stands and how much it has grown over the decades, it is clear what the outcome was in this instance, and as far of his efforts to unravel the exact circumstances that led to that point, Mendonça focuses on one particular story – or rather a few intersecting vignettes that share a common theme – built around one of the countless political refugees who were seen as persona non grata simply because of their views, following him as he attempts to lead a life obscured from his previous activities, but finding that it is almost impossible to fully escape the past, since people tend crossing paths, even with enormous barriers placed between them. As a historical drama, The Secret Agent is brilliantly insightful and genuinely engaging, and while it isn’t weighed down extensively by facts, it has enough context to allow even the most uninformed of viewers to at least mostly understand the themes that were being explored throughout this film.

We may not understand absolutely every reference in The Secret Agent, and while this is arguably a film that intends to be somewhat unorthodox, part of the experience is seeing just how far it can go in terms of exploring certain subjects. There are layers of allegory that require some context to fully understand – the perna cabeluda (“hairy leg”) is one such example of a motif that has its roots in reality, but rather than just being a nonsensical, surreal addition designed to break the tension, it is instead steeped in a long history of journalistic propaganda, where the violence and oppression of the public were attributed to these folkloric entities rather than the actual people responsible for these actions. Once we realise that Mendonça is blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality as one of the driving forces behind this film, the sooner we’re able to embrace the absurdity that enshrouds this story and makes it so incredibly compelling. It’s through this that we find some of the core themes revealing themselves – it’s a cultural story, but there is more to it than just a barrage of images without any actual connective tissue that binds them together in terms of communicating a particular message. Through this, we see some fascinating observations on gender dynamics – not only is the protagonist someone who embodies different categories of men, but the film is filled with characters who skirt along the edges of traditional gender roles, often subverting our perspective, especially for a film that has some lengthy discussions on the patriarchy and how it is the cornerstone of the culture and the people who live under it. There are fascinating conversations around family and the nature of memory – in fact, these two themes may not be central to the film at the start, but they’re responsible for the most impactful moments, particularly those towards the end when we realise that this entire story that we’ve witnessed is nothing more than a footnote in history, an expansive and epic story about survival, resourcefulness, deception and social unease, all of which can be reduced to a single caption beneath a black-and-white photograph on the front page of a newspaper. These nuances only increase our enjoyment of this film, since it plunges us into a state where everything falls into place in creative and daring ways.

One of the many reasons we can appreciate Mendonça and his very precise manner of bringing certain stories to life is that he views himself as only one of a collective group of artists that come together to create these unforgettable works. He’s made it clear that collaboration is the key to success, and with The Secret Agent, he consolidates himself as not only a brilliant visual stylist but also someone capable of assembling a memorable team of actors to bring these ideas to life. Wagner Moura has steadily found his profile being raised as a result of the exceptional work he’s done on both film and television for two decades – and it helps that he’s got an unconventional charm and a unique sensibility that makes him unlike any other actor working today. He leads this film, and is tasked with playing a character with many different sides – not only is he portraying someone who adopts several identities (each one having its own unique purpose and set of accompanying characteristics), but also the dual character of the protagonist and his son in the scenes set during the present day, a choice that seems so obvious, but yet brings a sense of unexpected nuance to the film. Moura is absolutely tremendous, delivering career-best work at this man desperately running away from his past, but finding that it is not as easy as he would expect. Multiple layers linger beneath the surface of this performance, and Moura places his full trust in the director, who pushes him further than many would anticipate, but all for the purposes of guiding this film to a very particular narrative destination. Moura is joined by a sprawling ensemble, most of whom are plucked from various strata of the Lusophone film industry, consisting of veterans and amateurs alike. There is the scene-stealing Tânia Maria, who made her film debut at the age of seventy in the director’s previous film, and made such an impression that the role of Dona Sebastiana, the den mother to countless political refugees over the years, was written especially for her. Carlos Francisco, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Robério Diógenes and Roney Villela (and dozens of others) all have wonderful characters that blend in perfectly with the film, populating a story that hinges on the intersection between realism and eccentricity that each of these characters brings to the story.  There is also Udo Kier in his final screen performance, appearing in a single scene, but one that sets the tone for the film as a whole. It’s a splendid cast, and Mendonça works laboriously to ensure each of these actors is given something memorable, all of which is part of what we can easily consider to be a truly humanistic mosaic.

Mendonça is someone who absolutely adores cinema, to the point where we can even view part of The Secret Agent as being a tribute to the very art of watching film (and makes for an unexpectedly compelling companion piece with Pictures of Ghosts, the astonishing film he made before this, a whistle-stop tour of the cinematheques that defined his childhood in Recife), and it is very clear that he is attempting to bring some of that affection to this film. We can easily consider this a project that is as much about filmmaking as it is about the tensions that pulsated throughout Brazil for most of the 20th century – and somehow, the director can combine them exquisitely. The aesthetic of The Secret Agent is beyond extraordinary – the precise attention to detail in terms of costuming and production design is incredible, with the cinematography by Evgenia Alexandrova, which not only frames the film exceptionally well but also allows for so many wonderful bursts of colours that we’d not normally expect from a film with this subject matter, is some of the absolute best of the year. He seems to be driven by the desire to pay tribute to multiple genres, ranging from historical drama to film noir to social satire – and in all instances, he’s approaching them with a genuine sense of reverence, capturing exactly what it is that makes these films special, but never being too fawning that he forgets to develop it in conjunction with his own individual vision. Much of this lies in the visual component, as well as the editing – the fast-paced, rapid fire approach to crafting this film makes it feel like a thriller forged during the genre’s heyday in the early stages of New Hollywood, with it Mendonça’s tribute to films like Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and Scarecrow, gritty films about protagonists on the run from their past, but forced to confront it when it suddenly re-emerges, more devastating than ever. It’s a brilliantly-made film, and the director is clearly fully in command of his craft, especially in those moments when we find The Secret Agent to be a perfect collision between superb writing and masterful direction – and this isn’t even taking into account the fascinating meta elements, like the surreal fantasy sequences or the framing device that bookends the film and adds more layers of intrigue into an already complex, deeply thought-provoking piece of cinema.

Without any doubt, Mendonça is going to be considered one of the defining voices in Brazilian cinema when all is said and done, and while he only has less than a dozen films under his belt, the originality and complexity of each one of them (as well as his future projects) are going to leave a truly extraordinary legacy, the kind that redefines what it means to work in this medium. We may not understand every reference, and some of the allegory may be entirely foreign to those who are not familiar with the various aspects of the culture – but this ultimately doesn’t actually mean all that much once we see the extent to which the film is willing to go to unpack its countless ideas. Part of the impossibly astonishing appeal of The Secret Agent emerges through its mood – it’s a tense, atmospheric psychological thriller that also manages to be funny and frightening in equal measure, often at the same time. Mendonça is a master of his craft, and his admiration for the century of cinema that preceded him, in addition to his clear fascination with the history of Brazilian socio-political and cultural discourse, makes him a keen social observer, someone capable of taking many contemporary ideas and leaping towards the past, recreating certain historical moments and using them to critique much more than just the most obvious aspects of its contextual milieux. This feels like a film that is going to define a lot of future South American cinema, showing yet again that there is always room for both bold, courageous storytelling and unique, artistically-infused directorial flair. Mendonça is unquestionably one of our greatest living auteurs, and while he may have only made a few films (only six features, including both narrative and documentary films), each one is pieced together brilliantly, and The Secret Agent is one of the most provocative and daring to date. An engaging, engrossing work guided by both a talented director and a cast led by one of the most charismatic actors working together, this film provokes and questions, as well as being wholeheartedly entertaining and generally just a well-crafted, deeply moving surprise of a film, in both form and content.