Apocalypse in the Tropics: a 'troubling' portrait of modern Brazil

Jair Bolsonaro, former President of Brazil, during interview broadcast at SBT Television channel, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Jair Bolsonaro is presented as a 'dead-eyed marionette' to Pastor Silas Malafaia's charismatic puppet master

(Image credit: Netflix / Everett Collection / Alamy)

This chilling documentary from filmmaker Petra Costa "tells a grim story about modern Brazil", said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. It explains how right-wing evangelical Christianity has seduced many of the country's political leaders and millions of its people: in the past 30 years, Costa tells us, the evangelical share of the population has risen from 5% to 30%.

And through its substantial voting bloc in the national congress, the religious Right has effectively created "a minority-rule theocracy". American televangelists such as Billy Graham made inroads into the majority Catholic nation after the Second World War; and how today, figures such as Pastor Silas Malafaia, a celebrity evangelist who became a major influence on the former president, Jair Bolsonaro, are wildly popular.

Costa has somehow managed to get fantastic access to her subjects, said Ellen E. Jones in The Observer. Even Bolsonaro features, presented as a "dead-eyed marionette" to Malafaia's charismatic puppet master. The film is a lament for secularism, said Bilge Ebiri in New York Magazine. Even in the dark days of Brazil's military dictatorship, Costa says, religion and government remained separate. But today, politicians of Left and Right are careful to court the evangelical vote.

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Archive footage of Brasília, showing how the newly built capital's architecture manifested the separation of Church and state, is contrasted with the horrifying Maga-inspired mob assault on the city in 2023. Costa ends on a relatively hopeful note, but cautions that even with Bolsonaro gone, "religious fanaticism" remains as influential as ever. It all points to a "troubling and uncertain future".