Apocalypse in the Tropics review – how Brazilian politics succumbed to rightwing fundamentalism
The politicians have a close association to televangelists like the always angry Pastor Silas Malafaia, interviewed at some length here, a strange man thrilled and energised by his own national celebrity and wealth, though irritated by questioning about his private plane, whose value, he says, has depreciated from over a million dollars new to about $800,000. Malafaia is someone for whom an ear-splittingly shrill and boorish rant about gays and communists is a natural mode of communication.
The Christian caucus helped deliver the fiercely reactionary, blandly self-satisfied Jair Bolsonaro to the Brazilian presidency in 2019, though Bolsonaro's callous and incompetent handling of Covid probably sowed the seeds for discontent with his posturing rule. But the film also shows how the Workers' Party ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – known universally as 'Lula' – ran again for the presidency in 2021 and was careful to court the evangelical vote.
Lula won in 2022 – and Bolsonaro, in Trumpian style, refused to concede, encouraged a coup and incited his supporters to storm government buildings. But what now? Is Lula simply the Brazilian Biden, ageing and uninspiring? Will someone else be the second coming of the Brazilian far right? Could it be the gruesome Pastor Malafaia himself perhaps? Or would he find the subsequent press scrutiny of all his personal dealings disagreeable? Democracy has never looked so vulnerable.
Apocalypse in the Tropics is in cinemas from 11 July and on Netflix from 14 July.
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