The Secret Agent (2025)

Carnival, hairy legs, and mischief in 1977 Brazil

The Secret Agent (2025), dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho

On his way to making a new life in the northeastern town of Recife, Brazil, Marcelo pulls into a gas station where a two-day-old murder victim lies hidden in plain sight beneath pieces of cardboard. The reason for the delayed police response? Carnival—where at least 100 deaths are expected. When the cops finally arrive, they aren’t there to collect the body but to question Marcelo, who can’t help noticing the blood on one officer’s shirt.

Director Kleber Mendonça Filho drops the viewer into the soulful world of 1977 Brazil, a time “of mischief” under a militaristic dictatorship, where violence is normalized and corrupt police run amok. Mendonça Filho intertwines the political with the personal as we follow an ordinary citizen shaped by the government’s neglect and its failure to intervene in private persecution.

Setting the film in Recife, rather than the more commonly depicted southern cities, adds layers of racial and class tension to the conflict. Here, Mendonça Filho highlights how the working-class North is exploited both by the government and by southern city slickers who believe they get the authoritative say on what’s what and who gets what.

In a time when lives are treated cheaply, there is hope in community. When those meant to protect and serve instead fail and abuse their citizens, private communities are forced to look out for their own. The film is rich in dualities: it is both realistic and metaphorical (a dismembered leg haunts Recife, a two-headed cat); it magnifies memories of inhumanity while revealing a self-imposed amnesia toward them; it is both loose (sometimes to the point of feeling slow) and meticulous. It feels as though Mendonça Filho has been building toward a statement on the grotesque contradictions of his country, a source of both frustration and hope. It’s also quite funny.