Real and fictional sharks have a starring role in reputed Brazilian director Kleber Mendonca Filho’s The Secret Agent. A dead shark with a human leg in its tummy points to the mysterious ways in which people are dying in military-ruled Brazil. Elsewhere in the city of Recife, the big attraction in the local cinema is Steven Spielberg’s Jaws.

The Secret Agent examines the surreal and very real ways in which the Brazilian dictatorship is oppressing its subjects. The Oscar-nominated movie’s most recognisable actor is Narcos star Wagner Moura, unendingly watchable as a dissident professor trying to evade his enemies.

The Portuguese-language film is out in cinemas with English subtitles. The Secret Agent is set in 1977, somewhere in the middle of the authoritarian rule that lasted between 1964 and 1985.

The abnormal-is-normal tone is established in the nerve-wracking scene in which Armando (Moura) is accosted by police officers who are more bothered with his identification papers than a rotting corpse attracting flies and dogs a few metres away.

Lives are cheap but talk is expensive in these “very mischievous times” – Armando is cautious to a fault, keeping his eyes peeled for spies and informers. His refuge in Recife is a commune for other dissidents like him, which is run by the adorable Dona Sebastiana...

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