New documentary ‘Apocalypse in the Tropics' tries to understand the era of Jair Bolsonaro

Boston Globe

10-07-2025

Costa doesn't use the word 'Apocalypse' figuratively, as if to say things are really bad in Brazil (though she clearly thinks they are). The apocalypse of the title is instead a reference to the event foretold in the Book of Revelation, the only apocalyptic book in the New Testament canon — an event a growing breed of Brazilian fundamentalist politicos and pastors eagerly await.
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An image from "Apocalypse in the Tropics."
Courtesy of Netflix
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The impatient anticipation has created common ground for fearmongers and powermongers, from megachurches to halls of Congress. None of that liberation theology, with its focus on compassion and liberation of the oppressed, for this bunch. Just bring on the fire and brimstone already. In Brazil, right-wing brawn and dominion theology — which seeks to institute a nation governed by Christians based on their interpretation of biblical law — have hitched to each other's wagons; both parties have proven eager to join up and break stuff in the name of Jesus.
This state of affairs alarms Costa, but she responds with qualities that seem to be in short supply these days: vision and restraint. Her camera slowly glides over paintings by Bosch and Bruegel, who rendered elaborate (and still terrifying) apocalyptic visions on their canvases.
Sitting down throughout the film with the fundamentalist TV preacher Silas Malafaia, who threw his considerable influence and dominion preaching behind Bolsonaro during his victorious 2019 presidential campaign, she asks polite questions in a steady voice. Malafaia responds with frightening frankness; you get the feeling he believes he's talking to an ally as he speaks of the good ol' end times. Other Bolsonaro supporters, filmed at rallies and meetings, are just as vitriolic in their scorn for the secular state.
There are times when you might want 'Apocalypse in the Tropics' to dig deeper into the cold hard facts and brutality of Bolsonaro's electioneering and, er, dominion. But this isn't really that kind of documentary. Costa conjures an eerie, in-the-moment feel, lingering on images until they sear into the subconscious. The aftermath of the 2023 post-election riots, in which pro-Bolsonaro forces stormed the Supreme Court, Congress, and presidential office, is captured with lyrically ominous shots of broken glass, trashed buildings, and other remnants of destruction. In other moments, extreme overhead shots provide a sort of God's eye perspective that mirrors those often used by Bruegel.
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Costa provides just enough historical context to the rising theocratic fervor. As the film explains, there was a time when the country did embrace a charitable form of Catholicism, along the lines of liberation theology. But during the Cold War, this was seen as too close to Communism by the U.S., which supported a 1964 military coup. Billy Graham helped spread Evangelical ardor when he brought one of his 'crusades' to Rio de Janeiro in 1974. Brazil was ripe for a rightward Great Awakening.
As Costa says in her narration, 'Brazil became a laboratory for a brutal form of capitalism and vertiginous social inequality, where millions of people began to seek the help they needed in the Evangelical faith.' She also readily admits that she was caught off-guard by what she was witnessing when she began filming in 2016: 'My secular upbringing wasn't helping me decipher the signals around me. I knew what the Russian Revolution was, and the formula for oxygen, but nothing about the Apostle Paul, John of Patmos, or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.'
She adds that 'It was as if we shared the same land, but spoke completely different languages' – a sentiment that many Americans surely share.
APOCALYPSE IN THE TROPICS
Directed by Petra Costa. On Netflix starting Monday. 110 minutes. PG-13 (profanity, violence).
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