At the halfway point of the festival, the Brazilian entry ‘O agente secreto’ (The Secret Agent) stands out as one of the favourites of the competition. Six years ago, Kleber Mendonça Filho impressed audiences in Cannes with his late western ‘Bacurau’, set in the Brazilian north-east. In the meantime, he has realised the historical documentary ‘Retratos Fantasmas’ (2023) about his home town Recife. The capital of the state of Pernambuco is also the setting for ‘O agente secreto’. The main character, played by Wagner Moura, is anything but a secret agent, but rather a left-wing engineer on the run whose academic institute has been closed down. His real name is Armando, but now he goes by Marcelo and is on his way to Recife, where his son is growing up with his parents-in-law. His mother, Armando's wife, has died under unclear circumstances.
The year is 1977, during the military dictatorship. At the same time, two assassins are sent on a mission in São Paulo to track him down in Recife. In the meantime, ‘Marcelo’ has found a job at the city's registry office, where he searches for documents about his mother. What sounds complicated at first glance is an excitingly told tapestry of storylines that come together quite organically. Despite the serious subject matter, there are always moments of surprising humour when Recife revels in the chaos of the carnival and the killers from São Paulo are referred to as ‘tourists from the south’.
Wagner Moura, who became internationally known with the Berlinale winner ‘Tropa de Elite’ (2007) and the Netflix series ‘Narcos’, plays three roles with brilliance, once with long hair and a beard, then with short hair and a moustache and finally with a very short haircut.
With his Cinemascope format and rich colour palette director Kleber Mendonça Filho, who also wrote the screenplay, evokes the look of films from the 1970s. The presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, who revelled in the years of military dictatorship, has also drawn attention to this period of Brazilian history, most recently with Walter Salles' Oscar winner “Ainda estou aqui” (Here Forever).
The Swedish production ‘Eagles of the Republic’ by Tarik Saleh is equally political. The Swedish-Egyptian director, who was born in Stockholm, was forced to leave Egypt in 2015 under political pressure. This film is the third part of his 'Cairo trilogy', following 'The Nile Hilton Affair' (2017) and 'The Cairo Conspiracy' (2023), which screened in competition at Cannes two years ago. The Swedish-Lebanese actor Fares Fares plays a fictional star of Egyptian cinema, George Fahmy, who is revered by his fans as the ‘pharaoh of the silver screen’. Mr George drives a Jaguar and has a luxurious flat. He is no longer the youngest, but his films are still box office hits. Besides, he has a young girlfriend who is generally thought to be his daughter, which is why he has to keep himself supplied with Viagra.
He has little sympathy for the regime of General Al Sisi. But one day he is made an offer he cannot refuse. He is asked to play the general on his way to power in a biopic, otherwise something could happen to his son. Reluctantly, he agrees to take on the role. When he is made to look like the president with a partially bald head and double chin, the production is horrified. No, on screen the general is supposed to be as tall and handsome as George Fahmy. But that's just the beginning. An adviser to the president is present during filming and has the final say on every scene.
One evening, Mr George is invited to a dinner with the Minister of Defence and meets a group of senior government officials who call themselves the ‘Eagles of the Republic’. When he is asked to give a speech in praise of the President at a swearing-in ceremony for young cadets, he has no idea what he is about to get himself into.
At the beginning, director Tarik Saleh mostly makes fun of the vanity of the Egyptian film industry. But then the film becomes increasingly political and reveals the workings of a dictatorial regime that legitimises itself with pseudo-democratic elections. General Al Sisi's dictatorship is no different from that of his predecessor Mubarak. He successfully ousted the democratically elected president and representative of the Islamic Brotherhood, Mohammed Mursi. Anyone who criticises the regime runs the risk of disappearing without trace into a torture prison. Like George Fahmy's film partner Rula (Cherien Dabis), who suddenly ends up on a blacklist and ‘falls from the balcony’. Whoever previously assumed that Egypt was a comparatively liberal country compared to Saudi Arabia will be proven wrong by ‘Eagles of the Republic’.