Cannes 2025: "The Secret Agent," under the sign of the sharks of the Brazilian dictatorship

OFFICIAL SELECTION - IN COMPETITION

When it comes to atmosphere and horror, the Cannes Film Festival is well served: in addition to a palm tree falling in the gusts of wind on Saturday, May 17, seriously injuring a festival-goer, two feature films, one after the other, gave a more than explicit nod to Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) – it must be said that the cult horror film is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, and should be re-released this summer, restored.

After Dangerous Animals, by Australian Sean Byrne, with its serial killer lying in wait for the fin off a port, unveiled on May 17 at the Quinzaine des cinéastes, the broad narrative of The Secret Agent , a thriller by Brazilian Kleber Mendonça Filho, in the running for the Palme d'Or, is punctuated by a strange story of a human leg, found in the jaws of a shark – distribution of the appropriate goodies at the end of the screening, on May 18! This lower limb, half decomposed in the cold room, acts as a metaphor for the period of the dictatorship (1964-1985), with its disappearances and corpses on the street corner. Let us add that in O Agente Secreto , Jaws is showing in a cinema in Recife, inspiring strange drawings from a little boy.

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