The Secret Agent

A man seeking refuge in a coastal city of 1977 Brazil doesn’t know that two men have been hired to kill him, in this brilliant portrait of life under dictatorship. The Secret Agent is the name of a new film by Brazilian writer and director Kleber Mendonça Filho. Right from the start with the title, we have ambiguity. It’s not a spy movie—no one is engaged in espionage. Rather, it’s presenting the experience that is prompted by the idea of a secret agent: always be on your guard, danger lurks around the corner, conceal who you are. In historical terms,…