'Narcos' star Wagner Moura returns to Brazilian cinema with 'The Secret Agent'

Actor Wagner Moura, who attained international fame with the Netflix crime series Narcos and has been recently part of high-profile Hollywood films and shows, briefly returned to his native Brazil for Aquarius and Bacurau director Kleber Mendonça Filho's period political thriller The Secret Agent.

Interestingly, the film is set in Filho's hometown, Recife, in 1977, at a time of intense political turmoil and military dictatorship. Moura plays an undercover agent who, in the hopes of putting his dark past behind him and looking for peace, shifts from São Paulo to Recife, only to find that the city doesn't quite offer the respite he desperately seeks, triggering more paranoia.  

At Cannes, Kleber Mendonça Filho said his intent with the film was to explore themes of "repression and resistance" and the lives of individuals functioning within an oppressive system.  

In an interview with Deadline, Filho clarified that his film is unlike the dictatorship stories we have seen before. “Every time I told people the film would be set in 1977, the first word that comes out is ‘dictatorship’. Which is fine, but in Brazilian cinema, and Argentinian cinema as well, there is a sub-genre of the dictatorship movie. The challenge was to make a film about the logic of that time without ticking all the boxes of the dictatorship movie. I’m not against those films. In fact, we just had a very strong and beautiful film in Brazilian cinema, I’m Still Here, by Walter Salles, which did wonders for many young people who were not even aware of that moment in history. But with this film, it’s very much about the atmosphere, the fumes.”

The film seems tailor-made for Moura, who has been part of some politically-charged films with strong themes and, at times, ambiguous narratives, with notable examples being José Padilha's Elite Squad and its sequel (both from Brazil), Olivier Assayas' Wasp Network, and most recently, Alex Garland's Civil War. 

Meanwhile, Moura starred in the Apple TV+miniseries Dope Thief, with the last episode concluding on April 25. Directed by Peter Craig and executive produced by Ridley Scott, the crime drama co-starred Brian Tyree Henry ("Atlanta"). 

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