“The Secret Agent” opens with a sequence that highlights how beautiful filming in PanaVision can be. In sun-soaked rural Brazil, Marcela (Wagner Moura) pulls his canary yellow Volkswagen Beetle into a rundown gas station to fill up. After an encounter with a crooked local policeman, Marcela hits the road, eventually making his way to the city of Recife which is where the majority of the movie unfolds.

This opening sequence is an impressive introduction to the stunning look of this fascinating thriller. Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho and cinematographer Evgenia Alexandrova shot “The Secret Agent” with PanaVision anamorphic lenses and vintage gear which not only captures the wider field of view, but it recreates the distinct visual style of the 1970s. And it’s not just some homage. The camera transports and immerses us into the story’s vibrant setting.

You could say “The Secret Agent” isn’t an overtly in-your-face political movie, but the politics of 1977 Brazil runs throughout this captivating period thriller. It’s described as “a time of great mischief” in the opening titles. But that seems gentile compared to the true Brazil of the time. The country was in the middle of a two-decade-long military dictatorship which saw the systematic persecution and silencing of those who opposed the authoritarian regime.

Once in Recife, Marcela seeks out Dona Sebastiana (a fabulous Tânia Maria) who secretly owns an apartment building that houses political refugees in hiding. We learn Marcela is one such refugee. His real name is Armando and he once was an engineering teacher and researcher. He was far from being a major threat to the regime’s stranglehold on power – a revealing point that Filho uses to emphasize the breadth of the era’s persecution.

We learn through a lengthy flashback segment that Armando was heading a university project on the verge of being shut down by a corrupt federal official named Ghirotti (Luciano Chirolli). Seeing the lucrative potential of Armando’s lithium battery studies, Ghirotti moves to shut down their department before selling their research to a private company that he owns stock in. But Armando and his wife Fatima (Alice Carvalho) resist, making them an enemy of Ghirotti.

Back in 1977, we learn that Armando’s wife died a short time ago and their son Fernando (Enzo Nunes) lives with her parents. Armando tells Fernando that his mother died from pneumonia, but we can’t help but be suspicious, especially after their run-in with Ghirotti. Speaking of Ghirotti, he gets wind that Armando is somewhere in the Recife. So he hires two hitmen from São Paulo, an ex-military thug Augusto (Roney Villela) and his step-son Bobbi (Gabriel Leone), to track down and assassinate Armando.

As you can tell, “The Secret Agent” has a lot going on and I’ve only scratched the surface. There are other key players with significant parts to play. We get some great scenes with Armando’s concerned father-in-law Alexandre (Carlos Francisco) who is a projectionist at the local cinema. The Chief of Police, Euclides Cavalcanti (Roberio Diogenes), is a corrupt lackey for the regime, doing their dirty work with the help of his two obedient sons. Even more intriguing is Elza (Maria Fernanda Cândido), the leader of a resistance network working to get Armando out of the city.

Wrangling together this many moving parts is no easy task. Yet watching Filho succeed is nothing short of fascinating. He works with an unhurried assurance, following his own set of rules at every narrative turn. At no point does he or his movie seem bound by formula or expectation. It brings a certain freedom to his filmmaking and storytelling. Yet that very freedom doesn’t always work in his film’s favor. Take his choice include a scene of a sentient severed leg attacking locals having open-air sex in a public park. In fairness, it’s based on an absurd newspaper cover-up story and it’s meant to symbolize the regime’s oppression of minority groups. But it’s such a preposterous and tonally distracting detour.

With this much story it’s not surprising that some characters and their storylines get shortchanged. Yet there is so much in Filho’s film to soak in. His richly detailed compositions transport us back to 1970s Brazil, vividly capturing every detail and never wasting an inch of the frame. From the sweltering heat to the chaos of the Carnival celebration, Filho immerses us into this turbulent period. Meanwhile Moura shines in a role that gets increasingly more complex as the story progresses. He is a terrific centerpiece to terrific movie.

VERDICT – 4 STARS