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We’ve previously seen Bacurau, writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s last film, which we loved, and find The Secret Agent a similarly fascinating depiction of political corruption and persecution in Brazil, though much more grounded and fleshed out, particularly given the historical setting in 1977, at which time Brazil was subject to a military dictatorship. To José, who grew up in Franco’s Spain, The Secret Agent‘s depiction of life under fascism richly, and scarily, evokes the dynamics at play in such a society. As Wagner Moura’s protagonist discovers, simply upsetting the wrong person can be enough to have hitmen sent after you.

Mike argues that the film takes too long to get going – in developing its picture of the lawless world in which Moura joins other political refugees and a dissident network, it makes us wait to find out who he is and why he’s among that group. José doesn’t share that assessment, finding the time well spent and trusting the film’s pacing. We discuss the flights of fancy, including an animated segment which dramatises news reports of a supposedly supernatural severed leg killing people (in fact, the police and media are all too happy to make use of the nonsensical urban legend to cover up their extrajudicial murders); Moura’s performance, which earned him an Oscar nomination; the generations’ differing attitudes to maintaining historical records and keeping the past alive; and the hereditary aspect of positions of power, in which such figures as the police chief, wealthy industrialists, and even contract killers are always accompanied and assisted by their sons.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.