Apocalypse in the Tropics

Five years after her superb “The Edge of Democracy,” director Petra Costa takes stock of the far-right era of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. But this sobering and impassioned look at the evangelical age of Brazilian politics resonates far beyond Brazil. Costa may be glad to speak of Bolsonaro’s tenure in the past tense, but she is not done analyzing its origins and implications. The film’s key person of interest is the Pentecostal televangelist Silas Malafaia, a self-styled political puppeteer with rigid right-wing beliefs who is presented as the charismatic crux figure of Brazil’s new populist politics — more influential than the individuals he endorses. The film’s startling, climactic depiction of the January 2023 riots by incensed Bolsonaro voters that followed his electoral defeat offers a striking parallel to the Trumpist storming of the Capitol two years before. —Guy Lodge