‘The Secret Agent’ | Anatomy of a Scene | USAEMALL.com

My Name is Kleber Mendonça Filho and I wrote and directed “The Secret Agent.” This sequence takes place in 1977 and it comes quite late in the film. I kind of knew it would be an important sequence for “The Secret Agent,” because this is where we finally get to spend some time with the people who are staying at Sebastiana’s building, and it would always be a challenging sequence from the point of view of writing and also of shooting. So we have Isabél Zuaa playing Tereza Victória. We have Licínio Januário, who plays her husband. Hermila Guedes plays Claudia. João Vitor Silva plays Haroldo. Tânia Maria, of course, who’s playing Dona Sebastiana. We have Lula Terra and also Gal, who’s asleep, and we have Robson, who plays Clóvis. The whole sequence was incredibly challenging because we had one night. This is a night shoot. We shot from 7 p.m. until 4:30 a.m. and my biggest concern was that I wouldn’t be able to do justice to each and every character and to honor them, because I love each and every one of these characters. And also these actors. And with two cameras, anamorphic Panavision lenses, three mics, about 30 crew, three dogs, a cat. We had a lot to get done, not only in terms of the shots, but also dramatically because the sequence begins very light hearted and then it moves towards a change in the atmosphere in the room. But the whole sequence, I think, works because of the great acting and also because of quite a lot of affection that comes through in the text. Wagner’s character, he takes a “why not, what the hell” attitude towards hiding his name. He just reveals who he is and that has an effect on his friends. Licínio always very skeptical as Antonio, Tereza Victória’s husband in the film. They are from Angola. And slowly we bring new layers of meaning in terms of what it means to be getting by in an authoritarian regime, in a situation where you’re under threat. [TELEPHONE RINGING] The telephone, the way it rings, we mixed it a little louder than it would probably sound. Nadia Comaneci, the great Romanian gymnast, is in the background there with Wagner. And this is when Sebastiana truly shows how much she cares for these people. She actually says, I don’t want you to feel sad. Let me show you my little museum. And this moment, I think, it really opens up a new window into the film because we now realize that Sebastiana herself, she has a history in another country, and she has gone through a lot in life, much like everybody else in the film and much like all these characters. I never really wanted to do this sequence handheld. I always thought that it should be exactly the way it looks: very precise shots, well composed. I really wanted the actors and the characters to live within the frame without any extra energy coming from the camera itself and the Panavision aspect ratio, really, I think it’s amazing to get people into the frame. And Gal, little Gal, she was supposed to have a few lines in the film, but she was so sleepy and I thought, let’s just let her sleep. And then at some point I asked Evgenia, let’s get a few shots of her actually sleeping. And sure enough, when we were editing the sequence, we had a look at her sleeping, and I think it’s a beautiful way to end the sequence. She’s actually sleeping and maybe dreaming of a better Brazil.