The Edge of Democracy

This movie is a very personal account of Brazil's latest years of democracy. The narrative is beautifully constructed, interweaving past and more recent footage of what becomes the director's memories - it's actually narrated by her, as if she was showing someone a photo album or as if she was recounting a dream (or a nightmare, you decide).

Some people will say it's a biased, leftist portrait of events. Others will say it portrays the lamentable political coup that led to presidents Dilma Rousseff's impeachment and Lula's imprisonment and the rise of the far-right politics in Brazil.

Maybe both sides are right. It portrays a contemporary yet not domestic phenomenon: the pollarization of politics - the divergence of political attitudes to ideological extremes - which seems to be happening in different parts of the world (see the U.S.A, for example).

On a personal note, this movie touched me deeply and I couldn't help but think that politics no longer (if ever) means to serve society, but personal interests. Politcs has become a disclosed, shameless power play. And how does the population witness it? Some people stopped thinking about purpose and started rooting for the players.

In that sense, this movie is about dreams: it doesn't matter who wins. If we don't start making smart choices, everyone's going to lose. I just hope people wake up in time.