The Secret Agent

In 1977, Armando, a former teacher, arrives in Recife during the carnival holiday seeking refuge. He is sheltered by Dona Sebastiana alongside other political refugees Claudia, Haroldo, Thereza Vitória, and Angolan Civil War immigrants Antonio. The atmosphere mixes festive colors with the undercurrents of political tension.

Armando's son Fernando is being raised by his father-in-law Sr. Alexandre, a cinema projectionist at Cinema São Luiz. The arrangement underscores the personal toll of exile and dictatorship on families left behind. The city becomes both refuge and backdrop for their separation.

A human leg is found inside a captured tiger shark, triggering alarm among the city authorities. Police chief Euclides and his sons intervene as part of a broader cycle of corruption and cover-ups during carnival week. The leg's disposal in the Capibaribe River leads to a bizarre resurrection that attacks gay men in a park, fueling a sensational public frenzy.

Armando is registered under the alias Marcelo at the city's social registration archive and is warmly welcomed by Euclides, who offers protection. Yet Euclides's protective posture hides arrogance and recurring harassment, even toward Hans, a Jewish Holocaust survivor mistaken for a Nazi fugitive.

In São Paulo, hitmen Bobbi and Augusto are hired by a former Eletrobras president to assassinate Armando, driven by political and personal vendettas. The looming threat overlays Armando's exile with a sense that powerful interests will stop at nothing to silence him.

Armando is contacted by Elza, the leader of a political resistance network in the Brazilian northeast, who urges him to flee the country. He receives warning of imminent danger and begins preparing an escape route.

Augusto and Bobbi hire Vilmar, a local impoverished gunman, to locate Armando and bring him down. The arrangement sets in motion a tense manhunt through Recife.

Anticipating escape, Armando bids farewell to Dona Sebastiana and the other refugees who sheltered him. The departure marks a precarious turning point as the city entangles him with shadowed factions that want him dead.

The next morning, Armando searches for documents about his late mother, India, clinging to fragments of memory and hoping for clues to his past. The hunt for identity underscores the personal stakes amid political turmoil.

Vilmar locates Armando but fails to kill him, instead wounding Arlindo and a fellow police officer. Bobbi watches from a distance as the pursuit spills through Recife's streets, heightening the sense of an inescapable trap.

In a climactic chase, Bobbi pursues the bleeding Vilmar through Recife's downtown and ultimately kills him in a barbershop. The violent confrontation reveals how the era's vendettas reach beyond the battlefield into everyday spaces.

Decades later, history student Flavia researches Elza's resistance network through audio interviews and newspaper archives, discovering that Armando was assassinated. The revelation reframes the carnival week as a long shadow over Recife.

Flavia travels to Recife and meets Fernando, now a middle-aged doctor, who agrees to be interviewed in the hospital after Flavia donates blood. The conversation delves into Armando's political past and the circumstances of his murder.

During their interview, Fernando reveals he has no memories of his father or his childhood in 1977, underscoring how political violence can erase personal histories and leave surviving relatives with blank spaces.