The Edge of Democracy

Petra Costa is perhaps the best documentary director in Brazil. Her debut is the masterpiece Elena, a very personal look to her sister. The Edge of the Democracy, her third feature, is another kind a monster. A political one, to be exat, in which she narrates the oddly "democratic" impeachment of president Dilma Roussef.

Costa's talent is to make simple footage (either from stock and original shots) into sheer cinematic strenght. A rare gift, I might add.

This passionately angry doc (with incredible access) proves that partisan politics is a human thing, NOT just a USA thing...and I can't decide if that's a relieving or disheartening.

This movie is a very personal account of Brazil's latest years of democracy. The narrative is beautifully constructed, interweaving past and more recent footage of what becomes the director's memories - it's actually narrated by her, as if she was showing someone a photo album or as if she was recounting a dream (or a nightmare, you decide).

Some people will say it's a biased, leftist portrait of events. Others will say it portrays the lamentable political coup that led to presidents Dilma Rousseff's impeachment and Lula's imprisonment and the rise of the far-right politics in Brazil.

Maybe both sides are right. It portrays a contemporary yet not domestic phenomenon: the pollarization of politics - the divergence of political attitudes to ideological extremes - which seems to be happening in different parts of the world (see the U.S.A, for example).

On a personal note, this movie touched me deeply and I couldn't help but think that politics no longer (if ever) means to serve society, but personal interests. Politcs has become a disclosed, shameless power play. And how does the population witness it? Some people stopped thinking about purpose and started rooting for the players.

In that sense, this movie is about dreams: it doesn't matter who wins. If we don't start making smart choices, everyone's going to lose. I just hope people wake up in time.

This is a such a well made documentary on Brazil's politics. Being non-Brazlian myself, I went into this documentary knowing literally nothing about Brazil's modern political history, aside from hearing the names of Lula and Dilma mentioned in the news occasionally. So this was a very enlightening film for me. My only criticisms are the length of the film, but with the material the makers were running with I seriously doubt they could've shortened it down at all. Also the narrator's hypnotic tone was making it hard to keep focus. All in all, I highly recommend this film not only as an educational experience but also for everyone to realize that we all live in an age where political games are being played against voting publics across the globe, and sadly this is not confined to specific countries anymore. Wishing the people there much prosperity in the years to come.

Haters gonna hate. Some people that are rating with the lowest score (I bet most of them didn't even watched the film) just make the point for the foreign audience of how polarized Brazil it is right now. Petra did a great job by condensed the political situation of the country from the last decade with her personal and also analytical view.