POPCORN REVIEWSS

Written by Kleber Mendonca Filho, The Secret Agent can best be understood when you view the film backwards. In the final act, you see a history student Flavia (Laura Lufesi) approaching a doctor Fernando (Wagner Moura again) with recordings about his father Armando. Care has been taken that Fernando and Armando look the same – given how the entire drama unfolds through the gaze of Flavia and her friend listening to the recordings of Armando, in hindsight. At this point, you witness a moderately detached Fernando telling Flavia on how he has very little memory of his father, remembering how he finally did get to watch the films Jaws at a theatre that has now been converted into a hospital where he works in.

Each of these details tells us about the fractured memory that Fernando is subjected to – wherein the then dictatorial rule had ensured that not only was he distant from his own family, but also had no ‘real’ memory of them. A spritely deviation into last year’s I’m Still Here would be a perfect companion piece – particularly with its final scene wherein the protagonist in her last leg of her life, is the only one to remember her ‘estranged’ husband.

A direct parallel could be drawn to Armando’s life too, even as we are gently acquainted with him. You soon get to know that he isn’t a spy or a cop, but a former professor and tech-expert whose only purpose remains to reunite with his family. And like Fernando, Armando wishes to traces back the roots of his family tree by wanting to know more about his mother (something that positions himself at an Identification center).

But the differentiator for Armando and Fernando remains the times that both the characters reside in – the latter is unconsciously enjoying the perks of a democracy, while the former has to literally live his life ‘undercover’ and stay away from the limelight of the authoritarians in power – one of whom is shown to send hitmen behind him, simply because he disagrees with Armando’s ideology who is being viewed as a communist sympathizer. Yes, absolute power always corrupts – so if you choose not to ask questions before it is too late, you would also find yourself on the run like Armando.

The narrative has a neo-noir outlook with the proceedings, even whilst delving into bouts of dark humour that are sprinkled in the narrative. Be it the ‘censored’ newspaper headlines that results in laughs, or a parallel involving the ‘number of deaths at a carnival’ – a phrase that remains a paradox in itself while defining the fabric of the nation, the repressed times while being kept in the background, are breeding grounds for humour. And yet there are quieter moments that remain heartfelt too. In a scene you see a young Fernando asking Armando if he will ever get to see his dead mother, to which the reply is a plain and simple no. She is implied to have succumbed to pneunomia but the reality stays hidden from Fernando and the viewers alike.

While the proceedings remain a slow-burn, the fate of Armando towards the end is smartly kept under wraps, even as the tone of the drama shifts towards violence. The shootout in itself remains a metaphor for survival for one character, whilst for Armando, it all remains about survival. It is representative of the perfect paradox that we suffer as a society, wherein frustration and suffering often transition into survival. And yet, the end result remains heartbreaking in every way followed by the outro (mentioned at the start of this segment) that remains an ode to fractured memories that would soon be lost in oblivion.