Warning: Major spoilers ahead!
I’m a big fan of Kleber Mendonça Filho’s movies, that is the three there are (O Som ao Redor, Aquarius and Bacurau). His newest movie, The Secret Agent, is considered a masterpiece by a lot of critics1. After watching the movie, I can understand why it is considered a masterpiece. But there is a catch. My prevailing feeling upon leaving the cinema was one of profound disappointment.
My disappointment cannot be understood without looking at what is great about The Secret Agent. It is incredible how the movie manages to make even the smaller side characters come to life in the shortest of scenes. I felt close to them instantly, either taking them into my heart or feeling repelled by them. But here comes the thing, the movie doesn’t go anywhere with them. Some of them get killed which at least offers some kind of closure. Even for the main story arc critical moments happen off screen or are never explained. Somehow, I was thinking about Pulp Fiction as a comparison. Maybe foremost because the scenes in Pulp Fiction are also so memorable to me. But comparing the two, Pulp Fiction presents much more of a coherent story.
So my disappointment was exactly about this gap that I felt upon leaving the movie theater. Once the movie was over I wanted to know more. How does Marcelo/ Armando die? How does his son grow up after that? How do his grandparents go on with life? How exactly did Fátima die? How did Marcelo/ Armando get back at the white racist capitalist prick so much so that he sends killers after him? What about the refugiados? Do the Angolan refugees manage to escape to Sweden? What about Clovis? Will he continue to work for Dona Sebastiana? What did Dona Sebastiana do in Italy during the second world war? What about the prick of police chief? How many more people had to die because of him? Was he stopped eventually? What about Hans and his lover? How did he end up in Recife anyway? What is their story? Is it his lover? What about the corrupt capitalist white racist asshole? How did his story continue? Is his family still rich in today’s Brazil funding Bolsonaro? And what about the leg? Please let me know more stories about this fucking leg. It is more than wondering about the plot holes, gaps and open endings. About all the untold stories. It is a feeling of loss and disappointment.
The Secret Agent plays in a time of oppression when Brazil was under military dictatorship. This forms one of the main theme of the movie. Mendonça shows us his answer in the face of oppression. It is solidarity, connection and mutual support. A kind of support and connection that might be found in family, community, friends or colleagues. The household of refugiados captures this in its essence. But the topic of resistance is pervading the whole movie, for example with the staff at the ID registration center. There’s no big uprising, no big battle with the forces of good vs evil this time like in Bacurao. What the movie does is showing us people from every walk of life who choose good over evil. Who show us how to stay human in the face of oppression. They are the heroes of this movie. And thinking about what is happening in a lot of countries and communities these days, they are also setting an example for us.
The other main theme of the movie revolves around memories. Memories being erased and the nearly impossible struggle to dig up the past. Marcelo/ Armando is shown several times looking for the old identity document of his deceased mother without ever finding it. His son Fernando later goes on to mention that he has nothing from his grandmother. The only thing we learn about her is that she was a 14 year old girl living in slave-like conditions when she got pregnant with Marcelo/ Armando. For Fernando his grandmother is a plot hole, a gap. To one extent or the other we all have those plot holes, these gaps in our life stories.
By now I believe that Mendonça’s intention was precisely to leave the viewer disappointed at the end of Secret Agent. To leave the stories of all those characters untold. To make you feel the loss. A loss that is real. A suffering that is real. Oppressive regimes create loss and suffering. There is no closure and there shouldn’t be. The best you can do is fill those gaps with your imagination. Imagining how their lives could have been, how their stories continued – and by this you give value to their lives and suffering.
External links:
1 Reviews for The Secret Agent on Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_secret_agent_2025
I haven’t watched it yet and I want to very much – after your impressions I feel even more intrigued.