The enigma of The Secret Agent

We ran to see the Secret agenta film by Kleber Mendonça Filho, which won awards for best direction and best actor for Wagner Moura in Cannes, France. We tried at Sindbancários. It was crowded. We ran to Bourbon Ipiranga, where we never go. There was plenty of room there. We saw. Will it be possible to win another Oscar? Maybe for best actor or best direction. The film for non-cinephiles leaves some doubts. It’s not as round and closed a story as the one in I’m still here.

There’s something that escapes.

In an odd comparison, I’m still here is a soap opera made on a whim, while The secret agent is a work for those who like coded cinematic references and metalanguage games. I have doubts about the film’s title itself: will most people leave the cinema knowing the reason for its name? Wagner Moura is doing very well. A performance that requires special adjectives such as superb or magnificent.

The plot confuses a more linear mind, mixing folkloric aspects of Recife, such as the story of the hairy leg, with an acidic and detailed description of police corruption, the public service apparatus, the violence of official agents and the ease of finding a hired killer at a good price. At times, the filmmaker seems to enjoy an aesthetic of the grotesque, morgue voyeurism. Behind everything, of course, is the specter of the military dictatorship, with its civilian industrial allies, spying, controlling, killing, tapping phones, making documents disappear, interrupting careers.

The director also resorts to one of the most popular tricks in cinema today: creating clues that lead nowhere, simulating tension with a close-up of a character’s face, making the viewer believe that something important will come out of it, only to realize in the end that it was just a provocation. The military regime is in the background, coming to the fore in many moments. Even the case of the rich woman who not long ago let her maid’s son take the elevator alone, resulting in the child falling from the top of the building, has been retconned to 1977.

Undoubtedly, The secret agent It is a blunt social critique. I just don’t know if it will catch on with the general public like it did with I’m still here. If it wins an Oscar, our jingoism will catapult the box office. Did I like the film or not? Yes. A great film. Did I fall in love? Not so much.

Will I ever forget? It would be too much to bet. I would lose.

In a more sinuous and perhaps academic line of reasoning, you could say that it is a film about memory, loss, history, escape, fear and the abuse of State interference in people’s lives by all means.

The film’s publicity text does not seem to correspond exactly to what is seen. It is much more the story of a researcher who returns to Pernambuco after clashing with a businessman associated with the dictatorship than someone who returns to his city in search of tranquility.

Having seen the film at Bourbon Ipiranga, which is not characterized as a theater for cinephiles, has an advantage: you see yourself alongside those who, with one exception, do not see it with the eyes of an expert.

The reception was cold or lukewarm.

The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily express Matinal’s editorial position.