‘Apocalypse in the Tropics’ Review: Petra Costa Offers a Sobering Look at the Evangelical Age of Brazilian Politics

variety.com:

Guy Lodge Film Critic For opponents of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — which is to say, among other things, opponents of anti-Indigenous discrimination, deforestation, abortion bans, institutional homophobia and COVID denialism — his loss in the country’s 2022 general election was a relief, but hardly a new dawn.

The presidency may once more be held by liberal veteran Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (popularly known as just Lula) of the center-left Workers’ Party, but the demographic shifts and political machinations that enabled the recent far-right takeover still cast a long shadow on a nation beset with economic inequality and social unrest. “Nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest,” says Petra Costa, pointedly borrowing from the Book of Luke, midway through her compellingly impassioned new documentary “Apocalypse in the Tropics,” which rakes with a heavy heart through the recent past while casting an anxious eye to the future.

The heart-on-sleeve expressions of shame, fear and tenuous, glimmering hope that recur throughout “Apocalypse in the Tropics” will not come as a surprise to any viewers who saw Costa’s previous doc, “The Edge of Democracy” — to which her latest serves as a clear bookend.

Released in 2019, in the immediate wake of Bolsonaro’s election victory and while Lula was still in prison on false corruption charges, that film considered in depth the reasons behind Brazil’s significant tilt to the right, and regarded the new administration with openly voiced concern.