The Edge Of Democracy

Petra Costa's intimate look at recent Brazilian politics , The Edge Of Democracy (2019), is a frightening documentary and something akin to a mirror of politics in America and elsewhere. In this documentary you have a number poor, simple folk being pulled into a ruse to challenge the liberal establishment with a right wing party which would impose policies that would not benefit them. They succeeded with a "lock her up"2 campaign to impeach then president Dilma Rousseff.  This so-called anti-corruption campaign ends with jailing former president and future presidential candidate Lulu DeSilva. This is disturbing on many levels and the film maker sums it up correctly when she quotes Warren Buffet about class war started the rich elites in which they are winning is undoubtedly true. Gilberto Carvalho, the Ex-General Secretary of Presidency for Brazil's Workers Party (PT), sums up the party's seventeen years in power: "We didn't make the political reform necessary to end the curse of business campaign financing. There lies the mother of corruption." However, I cannot see a way out that would lend in their defeat. I think once the working class people finally realize that they have been duped it will be too late. It is a powerful and personal look at the Brazil and its politics.