If, like me, you've grown tired of Netflix's stale roster of documentaries lately — cookie-cutter true crime and hyper-sensationalized coverage of tragic events — then its new movie is bound to be a breath of fresh air for you.
This new release is called Apocalypse in the Tropics, and it was released on the streamer on Monday, July 14. This follows a series of film festival screenings and premieres, one of which I attended at Sheffield DocFest ahead of the Netflix release.
Apocalypse in the Tropics looks at the rise of evangelical Christians in modern-day Brazil and how right-wing politicians use it for their own gain. It focuses specifically on past president Jair Bolsonaro and his conflict with his pre/successor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
While the focus is on Brazilian politics, it's easy to extrapolate the themes to the US, given how closely religion is tied to politics in the country; in fact the movie makes several references to the POTUS. Its exploration of religion is bound to be controversial, not from any particular message or commentary but simply by choosing to look at divisive current affairs.
The movie was directed by Petra Costa, and it acts really well as a follow-up to 2019's The Edge of Democracy, which saw Costa nab an Oscar nomination. In fact, at the Q&A after my screening, she explained how the first scene of Apocalypse was actually captured while filming Edge.
I found Apocalypse in the Tropics a pretty harrowing look at how easy it is to manipulate people by using or abusing religion, especially with its closing scene.
However, Petra made it clear that the doc wasn't meant to be an attack on religion, stating in the Q&A that it's "a journey of being receptive to world views, in a moment when you feel these world views are responsible for the destruction of our society. That was what we were looking for: not how people move, but what moved people" and it does work, so you rarely feel that Petra is attacking people but just trying to find out what makes them tick and if it's a good thing.
The use of the word "journey" is apt as the movie loosely uses an essay format. Some people in my screening were receptive to it, but I can definitely see others being put off by the rambling monologues, which break up the story. I'll let you guess which camp I fall into.
At times, the doc is pretty funny too, which was a massive surprise. I wasn't expecting to think of The Thick of It while watching the movie...
Whether or not the doc works (its glowing reviews suggest it does), it's refreshing to see hard-hitting journalistic documentary filmmaking come to Netflix. It's been too long since the streamer offered me something that made me think.
Thankfully, that track record could change because I saw another doc at the same film festival which is also coming to Netflix at an as-yet-unconfirmed point in 2025: The Perfect Neighbor, which is already getting Oscar buzz. More on that when it's released.
