History of the kidnapping of democracy in Brazil …

When Petra Costa was born, you could not vote in Brazil: a strong dictatorship ruled the Carioca country from 1964 to 1985; that is to say for more than two decades. Costa knew well what this de facto government and the army in the street meant: his parents were Communist Party activists in those dark years and had to survive long in hiding. As if it 's been a crack – well known in Argentina – but familiar, half of his family belongs to the right and is part of the Brazilian economic elite . His parents, on the other hand, were persecuted by what Charly García called the "crazy boots". It is no coincidence that, with this family history, Costa wanted to tell the most glorious scene of his country, when the former metallurgist and union leader, Luis Inacio Lula Da Silva, was elected president Twice and in eight years of government he has managed to reach 20 million Brazilians will cease to be poor, among other great feats. But, while wanting to tell the evolution of the situation, he also spoke of the fall of Dilma Rouseff, successor of Lula, and the subsequent effects of Lava Jato, product of a premeditated alliance between the Brazilian right and the "party "Judicial, they had a media operating room to turn to the democratic president. Thus, the return to power of the most charismatic leader of Brazil has been avoided. All this, tells Costa in his documentary At the edge of democracy, which can currently be seen on Netflix.

Narrated in the first person, the film's sound structure is the director's voiceover, which, in the manner of a meticulous researcher, tells the campaign against the Workers Party (PT), the Lava Jato operation, the pancake party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), the striking absence of center parties, the street protests of 2013, the judicial process against Lula, the political trial against Dilma, for the growth of the far right Jair Bolsonaro, current president of the country. It should be recalled that at the time of the competition with Lula Libre, Bolsonaro had only 15% of intention to vote. A very salvageable element of the documentary Costa is that it does not save the critics on the PT, which calls into question a lukewarm not to fall into the hell of the corruption in which most of the Brazilian political parties were sunk. However, the director is not naive and does not confuse the cows with the pigs: it is clear that what happened with Lula and Dilma took place at the limit of the judiciary.

At the time of the greatest conflict, when Dilma was president and Lula was to become his chief of staff, a private conversation between them was the start of a fierce operation that resulted in the dismissal of the PT's founder. political advice. Interestingly, this recording was in the hands of the media companies that helped imprison Lula and, in part, before turning to Dilma. At six o'clock in the telephone conversation between the two politicians, it was already publicly broadcast. Then comes the lawsuit against Lula – who, in the documentary, is told by Costa in a thriller tone – accused of receiving a department in Operation Lava Jato. Although this could never be verified, federal judge Sérgio Moro managed to put him behind bars. It was thus avoided that the man who stood up in Brazil could stand for the presidency. You must understand the context: it was the favorite of the polls. The land was paved so that a xenophobic and misogynist took power. Currently, Moro has won the favor: he is the Minister of Justice of Bolsonaro. "Today, feeling the open earth, I'm afraid our democracy has only been an ephemeral dream," Costa says, almost at the beginning of the documentary, but that could work as a shutdown. How it went from dream to nightmare is part of the journey the documentary takes. And the images of Lula raised in a real human tide that asks him not to surrender, while in another area of ​​the city, there are those who scream for his imprisonment, allows us to understand that Argentina has not paid the copyright for crack: Brazil is also a mirror in this regard. In a certain way, on the political scene, the injustice is not just Brazilian.

Costa seems to be wondering what happened for a man who ends the presidency with 87% positive image restricting his political career this way. And he gives the arguments of the political betrayals of the allies of the PT who left him in an enclosure without a political destiny. But it was a fall that was much intriguing so that it could materialize.

The constant intersection between the public and the intimate is the tone Costa offers to the audience to tell episodes during which, even if there were no deaths, they have lived many tragedies, which has shaken contemporary Brazil. If it was a violent earthquake. "Where do you find the strength to walk in the ruins and start over?" Says the director's voice. Only Lula knows. Judging by the facts, the inner battle continues. As the saying goes, it is not the dead who fights.