The Brazilians surprised on Sunday, during the first round of the presidential election, by giving 48.2% of their votes to Lula da Silva and 43.3% to Jair Bolsonaro.
Polls did not expect the incumbent to be so high.
The French documentary by Lætitia Rossi and Ingrid Pipiniot shows above all the weakness of each of the two protagonists.
So much so that the title given to the German version of the film (Lula or Bolsonaro, the duel
)
seems to us more suitable than the French one:
Le Clash des titans.
Evangelical churches
The first twenty-five minutes are devoted to Jair Bolsonaro.
Elected in 2018, he then developed the theme of the three Bs: balls, Bible and oxen.
Bullets to liberalize the arms trade.
The Bible for the place granted to the Evangelical Churches.
Oxen to allow the destruction of the Amazon rainforest by the meat agro-industrialists.
Originally a Catholic, Bolsonaro converted to his wife's religion and was thus able to garner support from the more conservative Protestant churches in the country.
He followed the general population, since it is estimated that 40% of Brazilians are now affiliated with evangelical churches.
They are most often very conservative, anti-abortion and against the recognition of the rights of homosexuals, and more generally of LGBT populations.
MP Carla Zambelli places the stakes of the election, the second round of which will be held on October 30, on this theme:
“We are going to decide whether we are a country that defends the family, that defends life after conception, or if we are going to elect a traitor to the nation.”
Programmatic void
The camera follows in particular a motorcycle club, loyal support to Bolsonaro.
We see his boss, Djalma Lucena, chatting on a social network with Bolsonaro from his mobile phone.
He explains that his exchanges with the president are almost daily.
In a conversation with his loyal supporter, the outgoing president is heard to say that
“the electronic voting system is not entirely reliable”
.
An announcement of the contestation of the ballot which worries many in Brazil.
The philosopher Marcos Nobre believes that these demonstrations of bikers
"seek to imitate Mussolini's motorcycle parades".
Too bad the film does not detail more the results of the Bolsonaro presidency.
There is never any question of the management of the Covid crisis, when it has often been denounced as catastrophic.
We could also have had a glimpse of the real consequences of the outgoing president's mandate on the Amazon rainforest.
The disappointment could be great
The second part, devoted to Lula, shows him in the company of indigenous representatives.
However, its policy concerning the Amazonian forest is far from having been a model for the conservation of natural spaces and the preservation of indigenous peoples.
What the documentary shows well is the programmatic void of the left-wing candidate.
Its only slogan is the fight against Bolsonaro and the far right.
But what will he do in a country in the midst of an economic crisis?
When he was president, he developed very effective social policies, notably with the "bolsa familia", which helped lift 40 million Brazilians out of poverty.
But this policy was put in place thanks to rising commodity prices thanks to strong demand from China.
But the situation is very different today.
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