alt Hacker News'The Secret Agent': Exploring a Vibrant, yet Violent Brazil (2025)
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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.
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?
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).
Hard to put it into words. I started out disliking it and ended up loving it.
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.
Having grown up in Brazil in the 70s, I thought the cinematography of "The Secret Agent" absolutely nailed the aesthetics of that era.
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.
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.
One of the strongest movie start sequences in a while, it immediately sets the vibe.
I liked it, but I didn’t understand how it became so successful abroad. A lot of the plot makes no sense if you’re not familiar with Brazil.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir%C4%81t
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Agent_(2025_film)
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.
The Secret Agent 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.
It is a shame, but culturally Brazil can't let the 60's go.
Americans may complain about their boomers, but American boomers can't handle a candle to the obstinate grip Brasilian boomers have on the brazilian imaginarium and culture.
Imagine if every single hollywood movie done nowadays was kind of a pastiche of Antonioni's Blow Up, and if the Grateful Dead were the great gatekeepers of popular culture. Every single new cultural movement either paid homage to their style and their culture or run the risk of being discarded. In a certain way, that's how Brazilian culture works. Add the fact that culture is highly politicized, because a big part of it needs to be financed by the state and you have the perfect recipe for movies like "The Secret Agent".
There's also a certain societal expectation that for being considered part of the elite you need to be thoroughly versed on the political and cultural dynamics of the period. If you are a Brazilian you won't criticize those productions, lest you be seen as the brazilian version of the "deplorables", and you don't want to do it in your urban professional upper middle classe environment.
And this lead us to another very common issue. As being well versed on the vicissitudes and cultural zeitgeist of the period is seen as an elite signal, th stories will always be hard to understand for the non-initiated. And this is almost proposital, a certain manner of gatekeeping, because, while brazilian cinema wants to make as much money as American cinema, it absolutely abhors the idea of not being sophisticated, full of hermetic references for the non-conoisseur.
Watch the other comments on this thread. International audiences feels lost, while the Brazilians keep playing softball amongst them while exchanging their precious references that nobody else knows, including most brazilian not privileged enough to have had money to do their basic education on expensive private schools and then conclude their education for free on high quality publi universities.
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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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.
Pure cinema.