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France 24
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- France 24
Brazil's truth-teller Mendonca Filho's double Cannes win
The former journalist won the best director and Wagner Moura best actor for playing an academic being hunted down by a corrupt politician. It was Mendonca Filho's third triumph at the world's biggest film festival, after taking the second prize in 2019 for his dystopian drama "Bacurau" set in a near future where foreigners descend on an isolated rural settlement to hunt down the locals to earn points in a game. But the release of that genre-bending "weird western" -- which critics adored -- was hobbled by the pandemic. "The Secret Agent" is even more overtly political, a dark thriller set in the steamy heat of Mendonca Filho's home town of Recife in 1977, during what the film calls "a period of great mischief". That mischief is a euphemism for the murderous military dictatorship, with the northern city's carnival providing the cover for the disappearance of 100 people, with many of the bodies dumped in the sea. The film follows an academic played by "Narcos" star Moura with a couple of hitmen on his tail hired by a corrupt minister, who wants to shut down a university research lab so he can transfer its lucrative research to a private company. 'Self-imposed amnesia' "Brazil has a problem of self-imposed amnesia that was normalised with the amnesty in 1979" when the country returned to civilian rule, Mendonca Filho told reporters in Cannes after the film's premiere. "The amnesty was proposed by the military government itself, which since 1964 had committed countless acts of violence against the Brazilian population. "This amnesia I think caused a trauma in the psychology of the country. It became normalised to commit all kinds of violence and then simply cover it up," he said. Then "everything starts over again because it is very unpleasant to talk about certain things", the director added. Yet the killings keep coming back to haunt people, he added, with a supernatural "hairy leg" hopping around the city at night in the film terrifying people. With "Jaws" scaring the inhabitants witless in the local cinemas, a severed leg also turns up in the belly of a shark. The movie drips with sweat and corruption, critics said, with Variety calling it a "terrific... meaty period piece" and The Guardian newspaper lauding his "thrilling, bravura film-making" in its five-star review. Prophetic Despite the darkness of its themes, Mendonca Filho praised Brazil as "a country full of beauty and poetry" as he accepted the best director award. Mendonca Filho said that the film is oddly prophetic, with its story of corrupt politicians trying to close down universities for their own ends. "This script was written four years ago and now in the United States there is an entire situation where universities are being attacked basically for teaching science and presenting factual and scientific interpretations of the world," he said. US President Donald Trump has clashed with many of the country's top universities, cutting their funding and barring foreign students from Harvard. Mendonca Filho said attacks on education were typical of the far right, and "I thought that this would naturally be part of the script and the idea of the movie." "While writing the script, I remembered a very well-known saying in the Soviet Union, which was 'No good deed goes unpunished.'" Mendonca Filho has long tackled corruption in his homeland, taking on property developers in his film "Aquarius", which was shown at Cannes in 2016, as they try to drive a retired writer played by Sonia Braga from her seafront home. The director inspires such devotion in Brazil that "The Secret Agent" star Moura said that "if Kleber were to make 'Little Red Riding Hood', I would like it."
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cannes: Mubi Buys Wagner Moura-Starring ‘The Secret Agent' for U.K., India, Most of Latin America
Arthouse streamer and distributor Mubi has acquired the political thriller The Secret Agent from writer and director Kleber Mendonça Filho (Ghost Portrait, Bacurau, Aquarius), which has been a standout in the Cannes Film Festival competition, for the U.K., Ireland, India and Latin America, except for Brazil. The Portuguese-language movie, about a technology expert returning to his hometown in 1977 to reunite with his young son and flee the country, premiered at Cannes on Sunday. The Secret Agent stars Wagner Moura, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Gabriel Leon, Carlos Francisco, Alice Carvalho and Hermila Guedes. More from The Hollywood Reporter Kieron Moore and Rose Ayling-Ellis Didn't Have a Chemistry Test for 'Code of Silence' Nicola Walker, Jermaine Clement to Lead Disney+ British Comedy Series Kneecap Member Charged With Terror Offense, Band Vows to "Vehemently Defend Ourselves" Mubi will unveil release plans for the various territories in the near future. It struck the deal with MK2, which is handling international sales on the movie. Neon has acquired the film for North America. The Secret Agent is set in Brazil in 1977. 'Marcelo, a technology expert in his early 40s, is on the run,' reads a synopsis. 'He arrives in Recife during carnival week, hoping to reunite with his son but soon realizes that the city is far from being the non-violent refuge he seeks.' The film has drawn rave reviews. 'Enlivened by a populous, almost Altman-esque gallery of characters — way too many to mention — played without a single false note, and by the strong sense of a community pulling together for safety from the oppressive forces outside, the movie luxuriates in an inebriating sense of time and place that speaks of Mendonça Filho's intense love for the setting,' David Rooney wrote in his THR review. 'It's a major achievement, and for my money, sure to be one of the best films of the year. The Secret Agent is the Brazilian filmmaker's third film to premiere in competition at Cannes after Aquarius in 2016 and Bacurau, which he co-wrote and co-directed with Juliano Dornelles and won the Prix du Jury, in 2019. In 2017, Filho served as the jury president of the Critics' Week section at Cannes and his second documentary Pictures of Ghosts premiered in the Special Screenings section at the 2023 festival. The Secret Agent has Moura returning to Portuguese-language cinema after several years away. The film is produced by Emilie Lesclaux, Nathanaël Karmitz, Elisha Karmitz, Fionnuala Jamison, Olivier Barbier, Leontine Petit, Erik Glijnis, Fred Burke and Sol Bondy. Best of The Hollywood Reporter Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Secret Agent' Review: Wagner Moura Effectively Plays Man Of Mystery In Brazilian Thriller
Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonca Filho is no stranger to Cannes, having debuted two previous films in Competition beginning with Aquarius in 2016 starring Sonia Braga, so effective as a woman determined not to lose her condo to a demolition, and then grabbing the Jury Prize in 2019 for the surreal western Bacurau (again with Braga), in which a whole village seemingly is disappeared from satellite maps and must fight for its existence. Both of those movies deal thematically with people threatened with losing their way of life, being displaced. Now his third film in Competition and biggest production yet, The Secret Agent, also might fit into that theme (and no, it is not some James Bond ripoff) as it centers on a man coming back to a small city in order to get closer to his young son after losing his wife to pneumonia. What he discovers in the film set in 1977 Recife is a town under siege at Carnival time by criminal elements in the country, which is being run by a dictatorship and losing the chance for a better life under the ruling class. More from Deadline 'The Secret Agent' Clip: First Look At Brazilian Star Wagner Maura In Cannes Palme D'Or Contender Cannes Film Festival 2025: Read All Of Deadline's Movie Reviews Wes Anderson's 'The Phoenician Scheme' Scores 7½-Minute Ovation After Cannes Premiere, Leaving One Star In Tears Unlike the 1970-set Walter Salles film I'm Still Here, which won the Best International Film Oscar in March and is explicitly about being disappeared under the harsh military torture tactics, this film is really in the thriller mode. It focuses more explicitly on the individual story of Marcel (Wagner Moura), a somewhat mysterious tech guy who drives back to Recife looking for a change and second chance at life but immediately finds some strange vibes at the gas station just outside of town, where a dead body lies there covered by a blanket and abandoned. He is confronted by two military types who put him through the ringer with questions and checking out his car. He just wants to continue on and gets his first taste of the new corruption there by paying them off to stop the makeshift 'interrogation.' Once he gets back on somewhat familiar ground, he finds a familiar face at the building where his son lives, the wise owner Tereza Victoria (a charming Isabél Zuaa), who immediately tries to set him up with the upstairs neighbor, Claudia (Hermila Guedes). He also engages with his boy, who is more interested in drawings he is creating of the shark from Jaws, a movie Marcel is determined not to let his son see at the local cinema where grandpa runs the projector and seems more willing to show the kid the Spielberg classic. This interaction will be paid off at film's end, when the action flash-forwards to 2025. RELATED: Full List Of Cannes Palme d'Or Winners Through The Years: Photo Gallery Meanwhile, at his new job at a firm dealing with identity cards and research, the locals are curious about his single or married status, while newspapers run the story of a man's leg being discovered inside a great white shark that washed up and now made its way to a lab for a police investigation. Eventually the 'hairy leg' story takes on a life of its own, with even a fantasy sequence in which it attacks men engaging in sexual activity in a gay park, something meant as a metaphor for the secret police and authorities cracking down. There is a complicated path with many shady characters being weaved in and out, a body count nearing 100 unexplained deaths at Carnival and a extremist rival of Marcel's from his university days determined to oust smart colleagues by hiring a pair of daunting hitmen. We first meet them as they're dumping one of their 'hits' off a bridge, and now they're hired to track down Marcel and 'shoot him in the mouth.' They also are connected to that mystery leg to boot. And here is where we learn Marcel may not be Marcel at all but rather Armando. Hmmmm. In one of the best sequences, certainly the most violent, the hitmen hire another hit man to do the deed, putting Marcel/Armando in real danger in a town where he is getting a lot more than he bargained for. RELATED: Moura (Elite Squad, Narcos) plays the unsuspecting 'newbie' in town with conviction and slow reveal that he is hiding more than he lets on. The very large supporting cast including Filha regular Udo Kier fill in all the blanks in this overlong — at 158 minutes — sometimes rambling scenario that Filha nevertheless has managed to infuse with style and widescreen excitement. It also has a key subplot set a half-century later with two women transcribing audiocassette tapes from the archive. One of them is a conversation with Armando, which holds great fascination and curiosity for one of the women, Flavia (Laura Lufési), and could be a key to unlocking all the mystery. Producer is Emilie Lesclaux. Title: The Secret AgentFestival: Cannes (Competition)Sales agent: MK2Director-screenwriter: Kleber Mendonca FilhoCast: Wagner Moura, Maria Fernanda Candido, Carlos Francesco, Alice Carvalho, Aermila Gueded, Isabel Zuaa, Udo Kier, Laura Lufesi, Rokey Villela, Italo Martins, Roberto DiogenisRunning time: 2 hr 38 min Best of Deadline Sean 'Diddy' Combs Sex-Trafficking Trial Updates: Cassie Ventura's Testimony, $10M Hotel Settlement, Drugs, Violence, & The Feds 'Nine Perfect Strangers' Season 2 Release Schedule: When Do New Episodes Come Out? Everything We Know About Ari Aster's 'Eddington' So Far
