The sad-eyed research scientist might be, as the title suggests, some kind of spy, perhaps working to undermine the U.S.-backed military regime that governed Brazil from 1964 to 1985. The film's amber light and ample bell-bottoms situate it firmly in the late 1970s, a time of repressive dictatorships and jittery paranoia, triggered by political malfeasance and instability across the world. But Armando, played with cagey vulnerability by Wagner Moura, who is up for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the Oscars, doesn't read as a man accustomed to subterfuge. He's no political dissident or intrepid freedom fighter, much less the elusive secret agent of the film's title. Instead, he has simply crossed the wrong man and become a hapless victim of corruption, impunity, and greed'problems still common in contemporary Brazil. As Mendonca Filho told the Brazilian news magazine Veja in 2023, The Secret Agent, then still being made, 'is not a dictatorship film: It's about the logic of Brazil.'...
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