Marcelo returns to Recife, we meet him in the first scene of The secret agent, in cinemas from todaywhile filling up his yellow Beetle at a petrol station. A little further on there is a corpse, barely covered with a cloth, it has been there for two days, sooner or later someone will take care of it.
That’s not the only surreal element of the film Kleber Mendonça Filhothere will also be a zombie leg that spreads terror, detached from the body by the bite of a shark. But the crux of the matter is terribly serious. The Secret Agent it’s not a spy film as the title would lead you to believe, it is a film about resistance to tyranny.
In the 1977, during the military dictatorshipMarcelo must flee. Recife, the city where the director grew up and where he set most of his films (Aquarius, Bucurauboth with Sonia Braga, and the beautiful documentary Ghostly portraits) offers him refuge. A community of political persecuted people like himat the head of which there is a lively little woman, Dona Sebastiana, protects him. In Recife there is also the son, with whom to re-establish a relationship, there is the maternal grandfather who is a projectionist in a wonderful cinema. All this, including Marcelo’s fate, will come to light many years later: two students listen to the audio cassettes that the protagonists left behind. And they reconnect the many threads that history and violence had tangled up.
Wagner Moura, in the green shirt, in The Secret Agent.
The secret agent it was the most awarded film at the end Cannes Film Festival where he began his journey, Kleber Mendonça Filho received the award for Best Director and Wagner Moura the award for Best Actor. It was just the beginning: the movie nominated for 4 Oscars (in addition to director and protagonist, it also runs for best film and best non-English language film)won two Golden Globes and was also awarded Best International Film by critics in New York and Los Angeles, and Wagner won Best Actor by critics in New York.
Brazil, one of the most multicultural countries
We spoke with Kleber Mendonça Filho and Wagner Moura during the promotional campaign for the Golden Globes.
Wagner, what was it like working with such a diverse cast as that of The secret agent?
Wagner Moura: Yes. The cast is one of the things I love most about this film. I jokingly say that I feel like Dorothy The Wizard of Ozwho walks on a path meeting many fantastic characters. I think the diversity you see comes from Kleber’s script; he wrote the characters carefully to make them real, even those who only appear for a second. He paid a lot of attention to the theme of diversity, which is fundamental for both. Brazil is an extremely diverse country, probably together with the United States it is among the most multicultural in the world due to immigration. We have African, European, Asian communities. The largest Japanese community outside Japan is in São Pauloand Salvador — my hometown — is the “blackest” city outside of Africa. Southern Brazil is very influenced by Italians and Germans. But the film also addresses Brazil’s internal xenophobia. I love the fact that around 90-95% of the actors come from the north-east of the country, a region usually excluded from the Brazilian “star system”which is concentrated in Sao Paulo and Rio. I like that the film is full of different body types, different colors and different types of actors, including some non-professionals. My role, like that “Dorothy” I mentioned, was to make sure everyone felt comfortable. It’s difficult when you have to get on a moving train to shoot just one scene and you have to adapt to the director’s style. When you are the protagonist, you feel a responsibility to make people feel welcomed. I love the actors in this film; each of them amazed me with their talent.
Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent.
Kleber, The secret agent demonstrates a great love for cinema. Recife has beautiful rooms. Are they still there?
Kleber Mendonça Filho: Oh yes, I’m fascinated by the history of cinema, how films were made, sold and presented. The very experience of going to the cinema fascinates me. I’m still a film programmer and work with like-minded people. Many of Recife’s theaters have been closed, replaced by other businesses or are simply in disrepair. In my documentary Ghostly portraits I show their past and their present. Writing the screenplay is the hardest part, and my “lifesavers” are books, records and films. If I get stuck, I go to the library or watch a movie like Chinatown. Sometimes I find a record in a store and end up using it in the film. I invited Wagner a couple of times to watch films together; not necessarily related to this project, but just for the pleasure of seeing a great film and drawing inspiration from it.
In Ghostly portraits there’s a quote that says fiction films make the best documentaries. Do you agree?
Kleber Mendonça Filho: Completely. I actually wrote that sentence. The truth is not necessarily found in reality, but in ideas and how you convey them. For example, the first Mad Max it says a lot about the 70s, the energy crisis and the violence of that period in the world. Despite being science fiction, it contains a lot of truth.
Kleber Mendonça Filho, director of “The Secret Agent”.
Wagner, The secret agent shows a strong passion for Brazilian and Northeastern culture; How does this passion connect to the story of your character, Marcelo Armando?
Wagner Moura: Yes, the film has a real passion for our culture, especially that of the Northeast and Pernambuco, where Kleber and I are from. It’s nice to see how he managed to convey that on the screen, because it’s not easy. I also admire how Kleber, as a cinephile, uses external references — such as 1970s American cinema, anamorphic lenses and zooms — transforming them into something profoundly Brazilian.
A country not at peace with its past
Wagner, what can you say about the choice not to directly show the outcome of what happens to Marcelo? How difficult was it to shoot the ending?
Wagner Moura: We left that scene for my last day of shooting. I decided not to think about my son, Fernando (grown up, he always plays him, ed), but to focus on the father, Armando. When I played Fernando, I wanted to portray the father’s absence; he’s a boy who grew up without that man. It was an electric day on set. The character talks about a lack of individual but also collective memory of Brazil. It is a country that is not yet at peace with its past. In 1979 we had the “Amnesty Law” which pardoned the torturers and murderers of the dictatorship. I think a president like Jair Bolsonaro would never have been possible without that law that made people forget how horrible such a man could be. Bolsonaro brought back the “values” of the dictatorship in Brazil. It was a very sad phase. Brazil is finally coming to terms with its memory now that we have sent people to prison for attacks on democracy. I hope that young Brazilians can handle this memory better than my character.
Kleber the film plays between different temporal planes. Was it already in the script or did you work on it in editing?
Kleber Mendonça Filho: Both. Originally the two students entered the scene after 90 minutes, but it was too late for the viewer; in the editing I anticipated their entrance to 42 minutes. I love films that take place across multiple layers of time; editing is the most beautiful and economical special effect in cinema. The entire film transports us through different layers of time. In fact, my greatest school in this sense, regarding editing, was Ghostly portraits my previous film. Because in that film I put together archive material from my house and from the city itself, which covers a considerable period of time. In my house, it spans about 40 years passing within the same living room. And the same thing goes for the city center, the area of downtown: that’s about a hundred years in just a few shots.
Kleber Mendonça Filho during the filming of The Secret Agent.
How important is the support of the Brazilian people for the film to you?
Wagner Moura: It’s incredible to feel supported by Brazilians. The far right in Brazil has tried, with lies and disinformation, to make people believe that the government should not fund culture. But no country develops without a sense of its own culture, without seeing itself in its own films or books.
Kleber Mendonça Filho: The film is a big box office success in Brazil and I hope the US release strengthens our presence. Every time people see the film they make two discoveries: that it speaks a lot about the current world (USA, Europe, Brazil) and that it is a wonderful mirror of cinema itself.
