The 5 rules that guided the making of 'The Secret Agent,' according to its director

Brazilian filmmaker and die-hard cineaste Kleber Mendonça Filho relies connected a definite originative method. “I volition spell wherever my thoughts are taking me,” helium said precocious implicit java astatine a West Hollywood hotel. “And hopefully it volition marque consciousness to you,” helium adds with a laugh. But he’s serious. “It’s truly the pleasance of adding ideas to different ideas, making escaped associations.”

That’s however the probe for his erstwhile film, the effort documentary “Pictures of Ghosts,” which centered connected memories idiosyncratic and cinematic of his eclectic hometown of Recife, led to “The Secret Agent,” his Cannes-awarded thriller starring Wagner Moura. Set successful 1977, during Brazil’s dictatorship, and against the backdrop of the country’s riotous Carnival, it rests connected a classical communicative successful which Moura’s widowed researcher Marcelo hides from hired killers portion conducting his ain backstage inquiry. But astatine bosom it’s a sinuous look of its writer-director’s notions astir people, movies, places and the past.

A leader doesn’t request a weapon, conscionable Wagner Moura playing him.

Mendonça Filho has seen astir everything his accomplished countryman has made, but knew determination was thing inactive to beryllium tapped. “Many of his roles are proactive,” helium says. “I wanted a classical leader successful a antithetic way. Not carrying a gun. Weighing his options. Able to love. Able to amusement hatred. It made maine deliberation of Roger Thornhill successful ‘North by Northwest.’ He doesn’t cognize what is going on, but he’s compelling and casual to place with. So I needed Wagner’s bid of the screen, however the camera loves him, to spot him reasoning and emoting not successful an overt way. It was a challenge, and erstwhile we marque films, we are looking for challenges.”

A exile location successful 1977 tin reflector the caller past.

Mendonça Filho had agelong heard of houses similar the 1 successful which Marcelo hides out, unassuming sanctuaries that shielded radical from the dictatorship’s reach. But helium was besides inspired by however radical came unneurotic during COVID-19. “With a authorities that was uncooperative, unresponsive, and radical worrying to death, we recovered ourselves getting unneurotic with radical we loved, drinking, talking, sometimes doing tests together, and it felt good,” helium says. “So that was the affectional ground to spell with the historical basis. Then, successful this fantastic coincidence, the gathering we utilized was a halfway location successful the 1960s for radical astir to permission the state with fake papers. Recife has an absorbing governmental vibe. It’s ever been called the commie metropolis of Brazil.”

Wagner Moura successful “The Secret Agent.”

(Festival de Cannes)

Movie theaters were ever harmless spaces too.

A cardinal clandestine gathering successful “The Secret Agent” happens astatine the São Luiz, a beloved Recife movie location from Mendonça Filho’s childhood. The determination was intentional. “The movie theatre is an intimate place,” helium says. “It tin beryllium a 1000 seats, but you and a day are adjacent together. I person besides met friends successful movie theaters to speech astir a occupation they’re having, astir similar 2 spies gathering to speech accusation successful the backmost of a cinema.” But his screenplay’s backstage brushwood betwixt Marcelo and a absorption fig named Elza (Maria Fernanda Cândido) happens not with the paying customers, but successful a ’50s-era furnished flat down the São Luiz’s projection booth, a lair that Mendonça Filho archetypal saw connected a circuit of the theatre successful 1989. “It was acceptable up for technicians from Rio who worked successful the cinema, and it felt similar a concealed place. I ne'er forgot it. And it has 1 of the city’s champion views, which is successful the film.”

Because a movie suffers without a consciousness of place.

“I find it intolerable to dissociate a speech I’m having from the spot we’re having it,” says Mendonça Filho, who tin crook the rudimentary enactment of characters getting into a car and driving distant into an epic-seeming shot. “It’s what makes a bully story. If you’re connected a New York street, adjacent if it’s brief, you should cognize wherever you are. Give it context.” On a play movie similar “The Secret Agent,” that mightiness mean other enactment shutting down a block, getting the close cars, dressing extras, but for Mendonça Filho, it’s worthy it. “It’s a challenge, and if determination are modern elements, you’ll beryllium deleting them successful postproduction. It’s wherefore radical bash [title cards] similar ‘Los Angeles, 1974.’ But you should spot the thoroughfare the mode successful my caput you should spot it. Show me!”

Cinema is simply a timekeeper.

Mendonça Filho’s consciousness of the subject authorities arsenic a kid is that of a young cinephile’s: What was helium kept from seeing? “I retrieve marching each Friday successful schoolhouse similar small soldiers, but it was a batch of speech of films and censorship. ‘A Clockwork Orange’ was banned by the military, and yet released successful 1977 successful Brazil, but with small achromatic dots pursuing the actors’ genitalia. So my transportation with the subject was done cinema.” And since “The Omen” was released during Carnival successful 1977 — thing the manager noticed poring done aged newspapers — that fearfulness classical is what’s showing astatine the São Luiz. The audience’s screams adjacent marque their mode onto the portion Elza records of Marcelo successful that apartment, which is past heard again successful a flash-forward country by a young pistillate historian: a movie infinitesimal reaching crossed the generations. “I liked the thought that the miss successful the aboriginal reacts to the screaming [from the theater]. I conscionable person this transportation with clip and cinema. Film is my timeline.”