Apocalipse nos Trópicos

What an incredible film by Petra Costa! I have to admit, it took me by surprise. I'd read somewhere that it was about the January 8th riots. Nothing could be further from the truth. The events of January 8th only appear in the final 10 minutes of this nearly two-hour film. Instead, it's a deep dive into the role of evangelical Christians in Brazilian politics-specifically, their influence in Jair Bolsonaro's election and their later involvement in radicalization and the attempted coup.

I was expecting something dry and tedious, but what I found was a humble and insightful narrative.

This film far surpasses *The Edge of Democracy*.

Timely and absolutely essential.

As a documentary that explores deep religious-political issues, it's no wonder that there will be (and there are already) lots of negative comments about it. However, Brazil (like many other countries) has been split open in two halves of the political spectrum for quite some time now. But what we see in this film (and in Petra's previous one) is that, in Brazilian history, it was always the right wing that resourced to violence to force their ideals. When open violence was no longer an attractive tool, they turned to religion, offering easy, messianic tools to promise solutions to a struggling people often failed by democratic institutions. The poorly educated masses of Brazil are easy prey to evangelical-politician hawks who, deep within, care a lot about their pockets but nothing at all about their flock.

Brazil was never meant to be a country built for itself and its people, and we can see the results now.

First of my twenty films at the 48th São Paulo Film Festival, Apocalypse in the Tropics delivers more than its predecessor, The Edge of Democracy, in addition to consecrating (to keep with the theme) Petra Costa's pair of historical documentaries as masterpieces of Brazilian audiovisual.

In The Edge of Democracy, Petra's life is parallel to democracy in Brazil, and this makes her a co-protagonist of this national story, that goes from Juscelino to Bolsonaro. Here, in Apocalypse, the documentarist initially admits that she is not an expert on Paul or John of Patmos, and she wisely lets the story be told through the eyes of other figures. Some popular figures here and there get lost in a narrative that would gain more strength from their point of view, as the real highlight is the fearsome pastor Silas Malafaia. Using political terms to comment on your church, and religious terms to comment on democracy, Malafaia walks and rules at Alvorada, to the point of repeating Bolsonaro's speech, so that the president would not forget what he had to say, what Malafaia ordered him to say.

Four years of inadmistration are summarized, so that the projection does not become "look, gringo, how we suffered", but rather "look, Brasil, what you went through to get here", and by "here" I mean the real apocalypse.

I loved starting the Festival with this film, I would have liked to have enjoyed it more without the pressure of not catching the train to get home (obrigado, meu amor, por ter me ajudado, sem você isso não teria sido possível). Petra Costa, do more! Brazil will never tire of producing material for your filming (only criticism: Cabo Daciolo was missing, who made a cameo at the beginning of the film, back in 2016, and didn't even say "glória a deux!").

This is a very difficult but very necessary movie, which shows us upfront the destructive foolishness of allowing Christianity to dictate politics, and of enabling dangerous authoritarians to represent people.

Brazil has been - and still is - saddled with multitudes of delinquents with Christian discourse. There is no upside to that obscenity, and we all must strive to get rid of that disease.

The movie is a bit tedious, for sure. So much of what it shows we have painfully watched happens with our own eyes. But perhaps not enough people have the integrity to remember what has happened and how fiercely it must be stopped and corrected.

This is the stark reality shown to the world. The photography is fascinating beyond its narrative, congratulations!

You can see Petra Costa's dedication to her research in the documentary, even though she brings her vision among the facts shown, she still shows partiality in many cases.

I hope that in this way, with this film by Petra Costa, we Brazilians can learn to be open-minded and that from now on we can open our eyes. Conservatism destroys, we know very well what happened to Germany and its conservatism in 1939.

This document deserves to be seen, not only as a film, but as an account of a nation in trouble!