Apocalypse in the Tropics: Film Review

Petra Costa’s Apocalypse in the Tropics examines the symbiosis of Evangelical Christianity and Brazilian politics throughout the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro.

This makes for a level-headed, if somewhat detached, analysis of her country’s relationship with Christianity and swing towards far-right theocracy.

The film opens with shots of the modernist government buildings of Brasília, as Costa expounds the foundational principles of the city’s construction. Built upon postcolonial values of progress and democracy, the capital represents to her if not the, then a beginning for the Brazil she knows; this question of fundament will arise repeatedly. But her project is as much about the country’s destination as its origin, as attested by the recurring motif of the Last Judgement. Its clips are punctuated by closeup inspections of busy apocalyptic paintings, among them works by Hieronymous Bosch, Fra Angelico and Pieter Bruegel the Elder, their various elements scanned with the same slow meticulousness that drives this study of an equally vast and complex nation.

Costa references the end times for their centrality to Evangelical Christianity, which has gone from representing 5% to 30% of her compatriots in recent years. The film retreads the rise of this movement and its eventual kingmaking role in the Brazilian halls of power, anchoring the narrative around the career of one man: popular televangelist Silas Malafaia. Through a blend of archive footage and contemporary interviews with the pastor-cum-political commentator, Costa investigates not only the present moment, but a longstanding cultural disposition towards messianic figures that culminated in the election as president of one Jair Messias Bolsonaro.

Part political historiography, part anthropological inquiry, it’s a more spiritual experience than its predecessor; this time, Costa is aiming straight for the very soul of the nation. The carefully crafted montages of The Edge of Democracy are back with increasing abstractness – clips are often only obliquely linked to the subject matter. Such sequences are typically juxtaposed with scenes of intense microanalysis; in one brilliantly playful example, Costa rewinds the tape on a Bolsonaro speech, encouraging us on second viewing to observe how Malafaia predicts, or even directs, his apprentice’s words. The effect is equal parts absurd and chilling.

Kaleidoscopic editing, foreboding music (courtesy of Bach and Vivaldi, among others) and the filmmaker’s own narration all bring to mind the oeuvre of Adam Curtis, whose HyperNormalisation is the source of some footage. But it’s more focused than the British documentarian’s work, ambitious in depth rather than breadth. Costa mines the topic studiously, for the most part avoiding generalisations and pronouncements; her hackneyed final-act explanation of the Ancient Greek ‘apokalypsis’ – guess what, it doesn’t actually mean the end of the world – is a rare bum note.

Malafaia and Bolsonaro make for easy conservative targets, but the film shifts up a gear when Costa’s gaze moves elsewhere. We meet proud evangelicals who despise the president and his coopting of their movement, and spend time with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro’s left-wing rival and (spoilers!) the now-leader of Brazil. Although Lula supports a secular state, he is privately Catholic, and later compelled to perform his religiosity in public in order to win votes. It is here that Costa most adeptly demonstrates the influence of the church in matters of state, while also revealing a more symbiotic relationship than first appears – as religion has infected politics, so politics has permeated religion.

Citing both Jesus Christ and Sigmund Freud, Costa tells us ‘nothing that is hidden will not be made manifest’. In her grippingly portentous documentary, she admirably attempts to unlock Brazil’s unconscious, examining the anxieties that have brought its recent societal turmoil into being. This therapising approach can come off a little cold – I’m still not sure if the director pities, despises or empathises with the millions of working-class voters for whom faith is paramount – but her dedication to her ideals, political and artistic, is indisputable.

Apocalypse in the Tropics is now available to stream globally on Netflix.