Who is the secret agent? I’m still not sure. 

There is so much to love about this feature from Brazilian Kleber Mendonça Filho (Pictures of Ghosts). It is set in 1977 and has that bleached out, saturated pastel look that we think of, perhaps with nostalgia, about that period of life in South America. 

It’s a serious story but has elements of a TV crime drama or novella, with multiple characters and obvious villains and heroes. Marcelo (Wagner Moura) is a man perhaps on the wrong side of the corrupt law, keeping his head down while trying to find out information about his mother and prepare to flee the country with his son. He looks white and macho enough to be taken as a good guy by the genially corrupt police chief, Euclides (Robério Diógenes), even though he is living under a fake name in an apartment with other ‘refugees’. 

The film is a long one and there are many twists and turns – revenge, hit men, a shark caught with a leg inside it, media stories about a hairy leg on a rampage and conflict between Marcelo and his parents in law who are raising his son. It’s a story where there are mistaken identities, friends willing to sell each other out and all set against a backdrop of Carnivale and its cacophony of noise.  There are some great characters like the indomitable Dona Sebastiana (Tânia Maria) and Udo Kier in a small but resonant part. 

For some reason, about halfway through we suddenly switch to current day where a couple of female researchers are listening to audiotapes of interviews of the time. It is not given much context and appears a few times again until we get to the last act of the film.

It’s a really odd way to end the film, and I found it disappointing and like the director kept going with the story for too long. I won’t give you the details because of spoilers but there is a sudden truncating of the 1977 story we have been watching for the whole film and a switch to present day. Other than the cuteness of having Wagner Moura play more than one character, I felt like it didn’t add anything to the story and also de-escalated the tension. It’s unfortunate as, other than that, the story is compelling and visually powerful.