That movie was an absolute snooze-fest—way too slow and dull. I actually went to the theater with high hopes, but 15 minutes in, I felt like scrubbing the toilet would’ve been more fun.
It’s a shame Brazilian cinema is so stuck on such a tired trope like the dictatorship era. Enough already. That’s a oranje that’s been squeezed dry.
But I wouldn't bet against another one popping up this year...
At least I won't make the mistake of wasting my money and time on the same old cinematic garbage again.
I've had the privilege to watch it at São Luis movie theater in Recife. The place is really a character of the movie. The theater was at full capacity. 10% of the public was with a yellow t-shirt that Wagner Moura uses for 10s :-) I forgot how good it was to see movies in a theater. Everybody laughed or clapped together. I've never more seen a movie with so much popular appeal. People seeing their lives and history in the big screen. If it had won an Oscar, maybe São Luiz would exhibit it frequently. Like the Casablanca theater in Morocco that just exhibits Casablanca movie.<p>Pure cinema.
Secret Agent has a slow, difficult beginning (~hour). Not much happens. And it's not clear why what's happening is happening, particularly for someone unfamiliar with Brazil's political climate in the 1970s.<p>As someone who's never been to Brazil, certainly not in the 1970s, watching Secret Agent still felt like being transported there. How did they make a movie that makes you feel like you're in a familiar place you've never been to?<p>And then after about an hour, it picks up a bit more, and by the end, it felt like they directly transmitted to the audience the horror of the Brazilian junta in all kinds of subtle and dramatic ways. We don't see the resolution of the main character's story because that moment is lost. Memories of his life are fractured (through disjointed audio recordings) or repressed (by those closest to him).<p>Hard to put it into words. I started out disliking it and ended up loving it.
Felt the same as you. It felt like you didn't quite understand what was happening or what was going to happen in the beginning. Only for you to miss the characters by the end.
> Secret Agent has a slow, difficult beginning (~hour). Not much happens. And it's not clear why what's happening is happening, particularly for someone unfamiliar with Brazil's political climate in the 1970s.<p>That's very much the director's philosophy. He values the dead time between things. I saw him talk years ago. He's a bit of an intelectual. Very competent too. I haven't watched Secret Agent yet though.<p>Beto Brant is another Brazilian director. He is phenomenal. Also artsy but his films usually work on a more traditional level as well. They're more satisfying. I highly recommend him -- particularly "O Invasor", "Ação Entre Amigos" and "Crime Delicado".
Having grown up in Brazil in the 70s, I thought the cinematography of "The Secret Agent" absolutely nailed the aesthetics of that era.
I found it unsatisfying. Such a strong opening let down by a meandering movie with no payoff. Made all the sadder by great moments and performances spread thinly through the 2-something hours. I remember coming out of the movie theatre thinking there was a really enjoyable film buried underneath the crud if they could have had more restraint in the editing room. To each their own I suppose.
I did too. It felt like there were a bunch of subplots that never ended up tying together. The leg was the most disappointing to me.<p>My take home at the end was that it was supposed to show the audience that the story was recreated from the parts of the story that could be pieced together by the future journalists. Basically it felt meandering because it was meandering to the journalists trying to figure out what happened. The ending with the son was the journalist trying to tie everything together for herself but he just didn’t have the information. Still dissatisfying.
The leg is used both as a urban legend that was told at the region at the time, but also as a metaphor. The surrealist scene where it shows the leg brutally attacking people at night: all the people attacked are prostitutes, gays, etc. People that during the dictatorship the police used to just dissappear, and society turned a blind eye to it.<p>And it is meant to feel meandering cause that is how this period feels for people trying to study it. There are many cases that we don't know what happened. We just know that the people were killed/disappeared. The perpetrators were never brought to Justice. We are not even sure who the specific perpetrators are in a lot of cases.<p>This is how the Brazilian military dictatorship operated. There are people in Brazil who want to go back to this period. They say that everything was better. The truth is that a lot of stuff that was bad, was so bad that we don't even have the records to properly reconstruct what happened.
>The leg is used both as a urban legend that was told at the region at the time, but also as a metaphor. The surrealist scene where it shows the leg brutally attacking people at night: all the people attacked are prostitutes, gays, etc. People that during the dictatorship the police used to just dissappear, and society turned a blind eye to it.<p>Yeah, so I had to lookup the leg after watching the movie. My interpretation was that it wasn't actually really surrealism. They juxtapose that scene with the lady reading from the newspaper about the attacking leg as if it was real. The reason I think this supports the "from the future journalist's perspective" interpretation is that those were legitimate articles ran, while there were serious cases not being reported on things like people going missing by the dictatorship. I think they included it to show the absurdity of what information was available and what information wasn't in the papers from that time. Also because of the lore of it all.
> People that during the dictatorship the police used to just dissappear, and society turned a blind eye to it.<p>Reminds me of something.
Part of what it was trying to speak on was how truth and stories were lost during the dictatorship. What you felt was what a lot of Brazilians felt. Like part of them (or movie) was missing and they'll never be whole.
Yes, I was a big fan of Bacurau and it works well as a fable but this one is very grounded historically and even with a basic knowledge of Brazilian history of this era I spent too much time wondering what was happening and why (even though I did understand everything, it's not cryptic either, just the rythm feels a bit off)<p>Excellent aesthetics though but I am less sensitive to that
Having no payoff <i>is</i> the payoff. After everything that's happened to him, he is killed offscreen and his son, now an adult, doesn't even quite remember him.<p>The journey is the point, basically :) The scenes with the fellow "refugees" are great, insightful glimpses into Brasil, into that 1970s Brasil in particular. They don't need to lead anywhere in particular for me to enjoy it.<p>That being said, I did like Bacurau and Aquarius more than The Secret Agent. But that speaks more to how <i>incredible</i> those films are.
The Secret Agent was not an easy movie for the average movie watcher. It had an unorthodox ending, graphic violence, and it's in a different language. With that said, it's too bad it wasn't able to come out with any Oscars. I can see why OBAA won quite a few awards.
Decent film but to me 'I'm Still Here' (Ainda Estou Aqui) was still a too fresh experience from last year to have a similar film again from Brazil set in the 70s covering the military dictatorship. I also think that I'm Still Here is a much better film.
I definitely like that film, especially the acting and the music, but I think that, as with most material that covers that era (arts, history, journalism), it focuses on the middle and the upper classes.<p>The poor get a footnote: what happened to Zezé? But the poor were the biggest losers of the dictatorship. It was at the precise moment that the country needed to modernise that the coup made everything stop and the favelas grew along with violence in the periphery. Maybe City of God is a better depiction of what the dictatorship meant.
It's just now starting to become common knowledge that the military dictatorship didn't industrialize Brazil. On most circles, saying that it deindustrialized the country will surprise every single person, and get immediately rejected as false by a large share.<p>Propaganda is a hell of a thing. We are not even close to start that discussion, so it mostly won't appear anywhere.
One of the strongest movie start sequences in a while, it immediately sets the vibe.
One thing I noticed is that both this and another incredible film this year, <i>Sirāt</i>, were, at least in part, funded by a grants and state institutions.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir%C4%81t" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir%C4%81t</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Agent_(2025_film)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Agent_(2025_film)</a><p>If you haven't seen either, highly recommended. Don't watch Sirat if you're wanting a "good time," but I honestly can't think of the last time a film made me feel the way it did, especially the final minutes of it.<p><i>The Secret Agent</i> is maybe as good though. Makes you want to say "they don't make them like this anymore.." It feels like a good long novel; every character, however minor, is rich, full of life, in some way beautiful. It's something about how the past has these pockets of clarity, bookended by loose ends and uncertainty. The mix of myth and anecdote. Pieces of life we can remember, those we can't... Five bags of popcorn.
> One thing I noticed is that both this and another incredible film this year, Sirāt, were, at least in part, funded by a grants and state institutions.<p>Aren't almost <i>all</i> films partially funded by grants and state institutions?<p>For example the MPAA publishes guides like [1], and if you watch the credits of most films at the end you'll see "thanks to XYZ" where it was filmed.<p>Even if you film in Hollywood itself you are eligible for tax rebates[1]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.motionpictures.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Olsberg-Global-Incentives-Index-Latest.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.motionpictures.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Ol...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.ep.com/blog/california-expands-film-tax-incentive-to-$750m-in-2025-to-keep-productions-at-home-in-hollywood/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ep.com/blog/california-expands-film-tax-incentiv...</a>
Another movie that kind of slid under the radar but is very watchable (and mainstream) is Nuremberg. It's just entertaining without trying to be too much. It's not "great" but it's not bad, either.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_(2025_film)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_(2025_film)</a>
The immersion into the time and place was fantastic, the surreal elements being bold , outlandish, and unexpected were great. The time jump at the end was interesting. a great piece of work that some felt divided over as a general audience but overall memorable and ambitious
I watched both The Secret Agent and One Battle After Another (didn’t see any of the other nominees). For me, The Secret Agent was definitely better.
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