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!").
