Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent” opens with a curious warning. “Our story is set in the Brazil of 1977,” white text reads as a yellow Volkswagen Beetle pulls into a gas station, “a period of great mischief.”

That’s an interesting way to describe this period, during the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964 to 1985, during which hundreds of thousands of people were disappeared (see last year’s best international feature Oscar winner from Brazil, “I’m Still Here,” set during the same period).

But “The Secret Agent” is more playful and elusive than the straightforward family drama “I’m Still Here,” more “mischievous,” really. Even the title is a bit of a trick. By the end of the film, the identity of the titular secret agent is still abstruse, and that’s part of the fun of this tantalizing trickster of a film, a puzzle box of pieces that fit together perfectly: a political thriller; a love letter to the movies; a warm, lived-in portrait of a man, a city, a moment in time.

The film is also an expression of Mendonça Filho’s love for his hometown of Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, in the northeast of Brazil, and the people from there, with their resilience, humor and sense of community. His 2023 documentary, “Pictures of Ghosts,” is a companion piece to “The Secret Agent,” in its careful documentation of his cherished places of Recife: the family apartment, where he shot many films, and the downtown movie theaters that shaped his vision of the world, the temples of cinema where he worshipped.

“The Secret Agent” is an enchanting slow burn of a film that burrows itself inside you, intoxicating in its epic, yet intimately embodied approach to history. Star Wagner Moura inhabits this duality in his Cannes best actor-winning performance, which is at once tender, fierce and yearning, but also mysterious and guarded. Moura plays a university professor and research scientist going by the name Marcelo, who turns up in Recife during Carnival, and moves into a home for wayward political refugees on their way to somewhere else. But for a brief time, under the enthusiastic care of house matron Dona Sebastiana (Tânia Maria), they are a family, celebrating together, sharing groceries, living space and veiled personal histories.

Violence lingers around the edges from the start, from the first moment that Marcelo arrives at the gas station, where a dead body has been languishing in the dirt for days. But when the police pull up, they’re more interested in this new stranger in town and what bribes they can get, and the corpse proves to be a foreboding bit of foreshadowing.

Marcelo’s plan is to take his young son Fernando (Enzo Nunes), who has been living with Marcelo’s in-laws in Recife, out of Brazil, for their safety. While waiting to leave, he’s placed in a job in the identification office, where he searches the files for his mother’s identification card, as some sort of proof that she once existed. He keeps a low profile while trying to evade a corrupt industrialist, Ghirotti (Luciano Chirolli) with whom he and his late wife (Alice Carvalho) tangled, at his former research university.

The local police chief Euclides (Robério Diógenes) and his two sons do take notice of Marcelo, while they bungle and cover up the mystery of a human leg that showed up in the belly of a massive shark. Sharks are on the brain in Recife, where “Jaws” has been playing at the local movie theater for months, the poster occupying the mind of young Fernando, who lives with his movie theater projectionist grandfather Alexandre (Carlos Francisco). Meanwhile, a pair of hit men (Roney Villela and Gabriel Leone) have been dispatched by Ghirotti, and Marcelo realizes his time is running out as they get closer and closer.

“The Secret Agent” is political thriller as ensemble piece as city symphony. Mendonça Filho invites us to get comfortable in his hometown, our host the earthy and empathetic Marcelo, enjoying its rhythms and culture, before the film explodes in chaotic, confusing violence. It’s a a similar pattern to his 2019 film “Bacurau,” an anti-colonialist Western, but “The Secret Agent” is less exploitation movie and more sly and sexy ‘70s noir, peppered with cheeky horror flair.

This layered, complex film reveals more and more of itself upon every viewing, petals of emotion, symbolism and meaning continually blooming, always grounded by Moura’s gravitational pull. A modern framing device asks us to consider how we process the collective trauma of history. But for Mendonça Filho, who has poured his love for his city, his country and its people into this masterpiece of a film, his favorite way to process anything is through making and watching movies. It’s his best film, and the best film of the year.

———

'THE SECRET AGENT'

(In Portuguese with English subtitles)

4 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for strong bloody violence, sexual content, language, and some full nudity)

Running time: 2:38

How to watch: In theaters Dec. 5

———

©2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC