The Secret Agent captures the dystopian reality of Brazil in 1977, under the military dictatorship of President Ernesto Geisel. The film opens with a yellow Beetle approaching a deserted gas station. A dead body is lying just a few feet away from the gas pump, and it immediately grabs the attention of a middle-aged man with a scruffy beard, and sunglasses on. He attempts to drive away, but the man at the station convinces him to stay. The man decides to find out the story behind the dead body; he is clearly intrigued. The gas station guy explains that the deceased attempted to steal gasoline, and one of the men at the station shot him and fled. He complained about being stuck with a decomposing corpse and a hundred flies at his workplace. The cops were busy with the carnival, and investigating a murder scene wasn’t really their priority. Just as our protagonist is about to leave in his little bright yellow car, the cops show up. Not because there is a dead body, but they figure a man driving a fairly decent car might have some cash on him. One of the policemen searched his car, desperately trying to find some fault that they could use to extract cash, but they couldn’t find any. Frustrated, the cop decides to give up all pretense and directly asks for money for the ‘police carnival fund.’ Our protagonist scoffs at the remark and pulls out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offers it, explaining that he didn’t have cash. The policeman happily accepts the bribe.
The brilliant opening scene conveys the film’s core sentiment. The government is a joke, the system is corrupt, and even the sight and stench of a decomposing corpse isn’t enough to grab the attention of the cops! The common people try to shield themselves from the rotten sight, but the newspapers and cardboard can only do so much. The hungry mongrels time and again gather around the dead body, licking blood and relishing the brain scraps. And amidst this madness, there is a carnival, a celebration so loud that everything that’s wrong with the country is buried in its deafening noise.
Spoiler Alert
What is the significance of the ‘hairy leg’?
The severed ‘hairy leg’ that was found in a captured tiger shark is the most absurd and intriguing subplot in The Secret Agent. Euclides Kavalkancis, the police chief, hurried to the Oceanography Department after he was informed that a severed leg had been found inside a tiger shark. Not that he was concerned or planned on conducting a serious investigation, but he had to cover it up. He and his men were responsible for a murder that the public or the press wasn’t aware of. The story of the severed leg could potentially grab public attention, and the police chief feared that the Civil Police would be under pressure to investigate (not that he wouldn’t manage to get away with it, but he wanted to avoid the ‘unnecessary’ chaos). As the film progresses, we discover that Euclides had his men, Sergio and Arlindo, murder an agronomy student, and although they’d dumped his body, his severed leg had ended up in the belly of a shark and stirred trouble. It is also suggested that the student was innocent and not a communist activist like the cop had concluded. Euclides brushed aside his sins by stating, ‘We couldn’t have known that he was a good guy.’
Interestingly, a very real and extremely disturbing incident soon turned into a mythical, almost cartoonish tale. The shift helped in diluting a pressing matter, and the severed ‘hairy leg’ almost became a tool for gags. There was even an article that stated that the severed leg had allegedly been seen aggressively attacking a gay couple in a park. The regime would often target people from the queer community, and they used the severed leg as a tool for moral policing! People were coming up with ridiculous stories, and gradually, it can be presumed, no one gave a serious thought to what really happened to the severed leg, or if the police managed to find the identity of the deceased.
Meanwhile, Sergio and Arlindo replaced the amputated body part with the severed leg of an animal at the morgue. They carried the ‘hairy leg’ with them in a car and then dropped it off in a water body, hoping the piranhas would get rid of the evidence this time. The repeated mention of the ‘hairy leg’ throughout the film suggests that in a country where rampant murder had become commonplace, even something as striking as a severed leg found inside a shark wouldn’t really result in the kind of outrage or curiosity that one would expect. In a dictatorship, distraction is a major tool; the carnival, the humorous articles, and a visually striking cartoon all contributed to trivializing the incident and messing up public perception. The shark can be interpreted as representing the authoritarian regime; its system consumed an innocent student, and while the truth desperately tried to stick out a leg hoping to come to the surface, it turned out to be quite an impossible task. In a system that is corrupt to the core, there is no respite.
Why did Armando become Marcelo?
The Secret Agent takes time to reveal that Marcelo, our protagonist, was a former professor, and his real name was Armando. When he met his son, Fernando, after a long time in Recife, he’d mentioned that his wife, Fatima, had died of pneumonia. This was possibly the acceptable false version of events that Armando came up with for the sake of his son. Considering Fatima was directly involved in the research work Armando had been overseeing, it is likely that Fatima’s death was a state-sanctioned murder. Armando returned to Recife to reunite with his son and to find an official record of his mother (we’ll come back to this later). He planned on fleeing the country, and he’d taken shelter at a refugee neighborhood, and he’d changed his name to Marcelo. Dona Sebastiana, a former anarcho-communist, welcomed Armando with open arms. A network of communists, dissenters, activists, and refugees who had become targets of the regime lived in the neighborhood. Armando met Claudia, Haroldo, Thereza Vitória, and Antonio (Angolan Civil War refugees), and while they could not speak as freely as they’d want, or even share their real identities, they resonated with each other’s struggle and had developed a sense of camaraderie.
Who was Henrique Ghirotti?
Armando soon met Ezra, a leader political who has been running a resistance movement in Northeast Brazil. She was keen on helping Armando and had offered to get his passport ready after she discovered that his name was on the Federal Police List. Their conversation revealed that the man who wanted Armando dead was Henrique Castro Ghirotti. In 1974, Henrique arrived at Recife as a guest at the university Armando taught at. Henrique was on the board of the state electric company ‘Eletrobras,’ which was controlled by the Ministry of Mining and Energy. From their very first conversation, Henrique and Armando knew that they were unlike each other. Henrique categorized Armando based on his appearance (long hair, scruffy beard) as a communist, although the professor had denied the tag. Armando detested Henrique from the get-go; he was evidently an intolerant opportunist who judged people based on appearance and was least bothered about the interests of the common people.
Armando and Fatima had invited Henrique and his son to an informal dinner, but unfortunately it took an ugly turn. Henrique repeatedly insinuated that Fatima’s relationship with Armando was the reason behind her professional success. Armando protested, and he didn’t hesitate to add that he was well aware that the reason why Henrique had decided to visit the university was the lithium battery research that they were working on. Armando emphasized that he’d patented the research, and he wouldn’t let anyone steal it from him and his team. Henrique implied that Armando was using the university and public funds to get his research patented and ultimately disrupt the market. Henrique refused to let a university in Northeast Brazil excel in research, and of course he had an ulterior motive; any scientific discovery made by a public-funded research team was a direct threat to private businesses, especially if the team was headed by a man like Armando, who lived by ‘communist’ principles. He would always demand that his technology be used by the public at a minimum cost, and as a result, it would also reduce the scope of corruption for those in power.
Armando figured out the man’s intentions and decided to walk away, but before they left, Fatima confronted Henrique, stating that he’d been disrespectful. It soon escalated into a heated argument, and eventually Armando and Enrique’s son got into a physical altercation. The next morning, at the meeting in the university, Henrique shut down the research department completely. He labelled the university’s research team as ‘too independent’ and ‘separated from the South.’ He argued that a university in the northeast should focus on regional problems instead of offering solutions for the nation or for the world. Henrique mentioned that he’d bought 12 prototypes from a Canadian consortium through ‘Electrobas,’ and when Armando asked him if his private company was a part of the ‘consortium,’ he refused to answer (suggesting that he was profiting off the arrangement). Armando and his research team posed a threat to Henrique’s interest, and he therefore shut them down. But the research team slowly started to disappear, and Armando was an obvious target. Local newspapers in Rio and São Paulo published articles against Armando, framing him as a national threat.
Before Ezra left, she warned Armando that Henrique had hired two contract killers, Augusto and his son, Bobbi, to get rid of him. Ezra stated that Armando only had four days to make it out of the country. The former professor couldn’t believe that he had to hide behind a fake passport even though he hadn’t committed any crime, but then again, that was the condition of the state.
Did Armando find his mother’s official record?
With only a few days in hand, Armando was desperate to find any official record of his mother. The striking contrast in the existence of a man and a woman is demonstrated when Armando mentioned his father’s name, and within a few minutes, Arlindo, who worked at the Identity Card office, dug out his identity proof from the archives, but his mother’s was nowhere to be found. Arlindo mentioned that ‘the father’s name is easier,’ further emphasizing how women’s existence is easily erased from archives, especially if they were known as ‘the Indian.’ Maria Aparecida dos Santos was likely called ‘the Indian’ because she was a native, but then again, without documents, it was almost as if she never existed. Years later, when a researcher, Flavia, asked Armando’s son, Fernando, if he remembered anything about his paternal grandmother, he was completely clueless. He explained that his grandmother was a maid’s daughter, and she was only fourteen when she was impregnated by Armando’s father, who was seventeen. Fernando added that his grandmother was enslaved at the time, and after Armando was born, his father’s side kept the child. Since the mother was underage, she didn’t really have a say. This explains Armando’s desperation to hold on to at least something that belonged to his mother.
During The Secret Agent’s ending, Armando took a bunch of identity cards from the archive and kept them in his bag. He possibly hoped at least one among them belonged to his mother, because all he knew was that she had had her ID issued there, and he refused to believe that it was just gone. Considering Fernando didn’t have any of his grandmother’s documents, it is suggested that Armando didn’t find his deceased mother’s ID, and even if he did, it was never retrieved.
How did Vilmar track down Armando?
Remember the contract killers, Augusto and his son, Bobbi? Well, they arrived in Recife and hired a local gunman, Vilmar, to get the job done. Bobbi had been keeping an eye on Armando’s father-in-law, Alexandre, a projectionist at a local cinema hall. He’d found out the address of Dona Sebastiana, and one day, as they were following Alexandre, they noticed him walk into the Identity Card Office and speak to a man who looked quite like the man from the black-and-white photograph that Vilmar was given. Alexandre had mistakenly uttered the name ‘Armando’ instead of ‘Marcelo’ loud enough for the local gunman to hear. Alexandre wanted to show him a sketch that Fernando had made. The little boy was fascinated with sharks, and he’d drawn his mother and father standing victoriously on a shark right beside him, and his grandmother and grandfather stood at the corner of the page. He’d mentioned that as much as he loved his grandparents, he looked forward to living with his father, and he regretted to admit that his memories with his mother had started to fade. Alexandre begged Armando to take his son along with him, because clearly that was what Fernando wanted.
Did Armando manage to escape from Vilmar?
As soon as Alexandre left, the gunman loudly called out the name ‘Armando’ twice, hoping that his target would react. Armando already knew that there were men out there hired to kill him, so without wasting a minute, he came up with a plan. He decided to seek Euclides’ help. The corrupt police chief was his only ray of hope because, for some unknown reason, he’d taken a liking to Armando and mentioned that he would be happy to help if he ever needed it. Although Armando detested the man, he figured this was the right opportunity to use him to his advantage. He told Euclides that there was a dangerous man downstairs who was harassing girls and had threatened him as well. He begged the police chief to interfere. Euclides asked Arlindo to accompany Armando. Arlindo asked his colleague, Marcus, to come along with him, and as soon as Armando pointed them to the man with the red cap at the phone booth, they approached him. When they asked Vilmar to show his passport, he pulled out his gun and repeatedly shot the men. Arlindo and Marcus died on the spot. Vilmar was an immigrant laborer taking up risky jobs to stay afloat, and as soon as he figured that he was in danger, he shot the men and ran for his life.
Bobbi followed Vilmar; now that the gunman had exposed himself, he had no choice but to kill him. Marcus had shot Vilmar in the leg, and Bobbi simply followed the blood trail to get to him. In the end, Vilmar took shelter at a barber shop, and when Bobbi followed him there, he immediately shot him. The newspapers had falsely reported that a ‘Southern tourist was killed by a barber,’ and it was apparently motivated by revenge. Another example of how the truth was always manipulated by the regime. Makes one wonder if the barber was actually sentenced for a crime he hadn’t committed simply for the regime to prove that they indeed were trying their best to punish criminals. A total of 91 deaths were reported during the carnival by the newspapers; the actual count was far more. Murder was commonplace; some killed out of enmity, some for inheritance, some for personal vengeance, some for political differences, some were state-sponsored, and some simply for a can of gasoline or such petty crimes that were a direct result of a poor economy.
What happened to Armando?
Most of what we witness is through the archival findings that Flavia, a researcher/transcriber who worked at a private university, had access to. She was hired to transcribe tapes related to Ezra and her resistance network. She was extremely intrigued by Armando’s story and was deeply invested in it.
In The Secret Agent’s ending, we, unceremoniously, learn that Armando was shot that day by a contract killer, likely Vilmar. Armando had asked Ezra to keep his passport ready, and perhaps just when he thought he had distracted the killer and he could finally escape the building, Vilmar showed up and killed him. I wonder why Vilmar went ahead with the job, considering he’d killed Bobbi and there is no way Augusto would pay him the rest of the cash. There’s also the possibility that Augusto killed Armando, but considering he was not at the spot, and it was the 70s, Bobbi could not have used mobile phones to update him about the situation as well! Perhaps doing the job was Vilmar’s only way to negotiate with Augusto; he’d done the job, and Bobbi was collateral damage that he hoped Augusto would overlook. The newspapers had reported that Armando was accused of corruption; he was reduced to just another name on the list of ‘corrupts’ that the regime indirectly got rid of.
Why did Flavia meet Fernando?
After everything she’d found out about Armando, Flavia figured she must hand the information and recordings she had to Fernando, who was now a doctor living in Recife. When Flavia asked him about his father, Fernando admitted that he didn’t have any recollection of him. She mentioned that since the tapes consisted of sensitive information, the university had asked her to return them. But before handing them back, she had made copies for Fernando. Although Fernando refused to delve into his father’s past, Flavia left behind a USB drive that contained all the information. Fernando lost his father at such a young age that he couldn’t really remember him or the relationship they shared. His grandpa often told him how he was dressed up the day his father died because he was supposed to pick him up, but Fernando emphasized that he didn’t remember the day at all. He added that perhaps Flavia knew his father better than he did. Before Flavia left, Fernando couldn’t help but mention a coincidence—the cinema hall where his grandfather worked as a projectionist had now been converted into the medical facility where he worked. Their jobs were geographically at the same spot, yet the times, the lives, and their realities were completely different.
What is the significance of ‘Jaws’?
Throughout The Secret Agent, Fernando completely obsesses over Jaws. He used to draw the poster; he begged his grandpa to let him watch the film, and sharks appeared in his sketches quite often. Sharks had clearly become a part of popular culture, and Fernando eagerly watched Popeye hang from a rope as a shark attempted to grab hold of him. Even the radio discussed the shark with a ‘hairy leg’ in its belly. The repeated image of the heinous shark had left Fernando desensitized; he’d even mentioned that after he watched ‘Jaws,’ he didn’t have any more of those shark nightmares. Just as he was desensitized to sharks, did wars and dictatorships also desensitize humans to the point that they searched for an escape from their dystopian reality in a gory creature horror? Or perhaps watching a film where a creature was the only threat was an easy escape from the complex reality?
Perhaps the only silver lining in the end is that at least Fernando has enough material to form a vivid image of his father. It wouldn’t be easy for him, considering he’d lost both his parents, and it must have been traumatizing as a kid when he realized that his dream of living with his father was now impossible to fulfill. The sadness on Fernando’s face suggests that deep down he had always ached for his father’s affection. But at least now he will know what his father had been escaping from and the reason behind his death. Most of the family’s history was formed through memories and anecdotes; for example, Armando’s mother—whatever Fernando knew about her would also be lost eventually, and even his memory of Armando was formed with the few stories his grandpa had shared with him, but thanks to Flavia, now he could at least form a concrete idea of who Armando was, and hopefully he wouldn’t be another forgotten victim of the regime. During the end credits, it is stated that the film was made with private and public funds, creating, directly and indirectly, over a thousand jobs. Underlining that cinema and other creative arts are not only about the cultural identity of a nation but as industries they also contribute to the nation’s economy and employment.
