User reviews

This passionately angry doc (with incredible access) proves that partisan politics is a human thing, NOT just a USA thing...and I can't decide if that's a relieving or disheartening.

It's beautiful to get to see a brazilian-produced documentary about brazilians, made with such responsible care throughout decades of filming.

What lacks in this film, I think, are basically two things. Not in production or structure, in any way, but in narrative.

At the same time that Petra's perspective of brazilian society adds to the experience of the movie, like her interesting backstory and presence in important political moments (awesomely shown), I feel like a certain degree of a clearer impartiality would really benefit the story that is told. Of course that, being a personal telling of Brazil's history like this movie is, will inevitably include opinions, which are fairly presented. But I can't help but to think that watching a little more of the other side of the political scandals, against the subjects of the film for example, would really be of benefit - not only to the movie to be it's best and completest version it can be (by showing how complicated "choosing a side" can be), but concomitantly inviting a wider public that can watch and rate it fairly, and discuss more easily by having both sides widely expressed.

The second lacking, in a way, is the proposal of many unanswered questions. Probably it is intentional. Maybe by the fact that the story told in this documentary isn't yet completed in reality, and most of the questions are still unanswerable today; or maybe because of the willingness of the director to portray this political scenery in a personal way, proposing that the narrator wants to show it hasn't means to respond to what will happen. Either way, some answers would enrich, I think, the narrative.

Being a Brazilian myself, with a burning love for cinema, getting impressed by the quality of filmmaking and real moments, portrayed in a production from where I come from, was a really awesome feeling - although this film has a bit too much filming of Brasilia's buildings and beauty-shots. The technical aspects of the film are impressive, even more by the content of rare moments of our recent history - a feeling of "being there" I don't get since watching Poitras' Academy-awarded "Citizenfour".

It's really worth it to watch this film, even if you disagree with the points presented. To admire the handling of a great filmmaker, that has great patience and structure to tell a perspective. This movie is a bright sign in the future of brazilian cinema.

The documentary offers a very intimate view on the events surrounding the last decade of Brazil's democracy.

It shows some background on the historical political forces that dominate the country but fails to present a broad perspective of the context. It's clear though that this was never the objective when the narrator presents itself with her views. The documentary does very good at reminding us and offering a more static showcase of the ongoing forces that threatened democracy in an attempt to circumvent investigations and save themselves.

I had more expectations related to the informative content as I'm a native myself and the actual playtime of the documentary being a bit long but i won't say I'm frustrated.

I concluded it's a good resumé for foreign audiences to understand the current events in Brazil and a very intimate display of the effects of a political crysis in a borderline 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.

A documentary that shows a set of facts that the Brazilian and international media misrepresented at the time they occurred and that make the COUP that Brazilian democracy suffered in 2016 more obvious every day.

This is a such a well made documentary on Brazil's politics. Being non-Brazlian myself, I went into this documentary knowing literally nothing about Brazil's modern political history, aside from hearing the names of Lula and Dilma mentioned in the news occasionally. So this was a very enlightening film for me. My only criticisms are the length of the film, but with the material the makers were running with I seriously doubt they could've shortened it down at all. Also the narrator's hypnotic tone was making it hard to keep focus. All in all, I highly recommend this film not only as an educational experience but also for everyone to realize that we all live in an age where political games are being played against voting publics across the globe, and sadly this is not confined to specific countries anymore. Wishing the people there much prosperity in the years to come.

Haters gonna hate. Some people that are rating with the lowest score (I bet most of them didn't even watched the film) just make the point for the foreign audience of how polarized Brazil it is right now. Petra did a great job by condensed the political situation of the country from the last decade with her personal and also analytical view.

Watching this makes me really worried. The power play in Brazil is a sample of what's going on all over the world with the ignorant bullies who have taken over with their nationalist facade cause. Must watch!

Petra Costa is perhaps the best documentary director in Brazil. Her debut is the masterpiece Elena, a very personal look to her sister. The Edge of the Democracy, her third feature, is another kind a monster. A political one, to be exat, in which she narrates the oddly "democratic" impeachment of president Dilma Roussef.

Costa's talent is to make simple footage (either from stock and original shots) into sheer cinematic strenght. A rare gift, I might add.

The movie shows the underground, the backstage of the last years of political Brazilian scenario. The journalist that directed the documentary correlates facts, interviews, historical news in a way that we can conclude that it was a coup. Like senator in a legal and official phone call recorded by federals: "we need a great national agreement".

If you decide to watch, take your conclusion. Enjoy the movie, it's a good one.

For a documentary with such an engaging topic, it's strange that you leave the film feeling like you don't know many details of what actually happened.

Brazilian political history is rife with corruption and controversy. As democracy and more socialist government programs rise under Lula and his successor Dilma (though their actual policies and stances are one of the many elements not pinned down by the film), a right wing movement rises in opposition, culminating in impeachment of Dilma and imprisonment of Lula. As a call to action and frustration with corruption and unjust politics, it's fairly convincing, but that's because it shows little of the real views on either side. We see the weak accusations levied against Dilma and Lula, and we get a bunch of random, seemingly uninformed random people giving their two cents, but we never hear the real reasons behind the right-wing fight against them or much of what Dilma and Lula did in office. The cinematography also varies enormously in aesthetic between a personal, handheld narrow perspective which makes the political events more engaging, and a series of wider shots of protests and the city of Brasilia which are pretty but don't match the tone of the film. While the director's personal views are abundantly clear and her anger comes through, there is little nuance or substance in the view. I'm inclined to agree and love Lula and Dilma, but a film about political movements has to have more information in it. It's shocking how mediocre and unaffecting the film is for how fascinating I find the subject and am inclined to share the views of the director.

I'm not brazilian, but you don't have to be one or an expert in their politics to see that this is not a documentary, but an agitprop piece. At best this could be considered simple voter emotional journey, but for this you have ignore the director history and family connections, the production company and Netflix distribution.

The movie is standard propaganda so I'll just focus on the issues I personally see with Brazilian politics, from the perspective of a guy living in a former communist and currently corrupt ridden country: * People always have the leaders they deserve, * Nationations are different and democracy is not suited for all, not even for first world nations. Just look at history of democracy around the world, * Brazilian people are too emotional and "messianic" in mentality order to have democracy. Political parties are like religions there and you can see this from how little of the discussions here are on values, principles and rights, * Idealism is self-defeating and utopia is never a vote/revolution away. Real change takes a lot of work and time, generations, * Politicians are not saviours, the best they can do is to leave you alone, * Corruption is human nature, and comes in different forms, material but also ideological, * Between military dictatorship and communism I would choose the first :)

Beautiful documentary that shows, in a crude way at the same time intimate, how Brazilian politics works behind the scenes. The delicacy and courage in mixing family facts, an intimate look intertwined with the History of Brazil deserve to be highlighted in this one, which certainly deserved all the international recognition and respect. Hoping to win the Oscar!

Great doc. It helps us understand the complex political scene in Brazil, specially the sequence of events that led president Dilma Roussef to be impeached. Trust me: I live in Brazil. I know that is very difficult to make one good film about this theme nowadays. Ten stars, no doubt!

Documentary extremely important to our perception of democracy and how it has been elitist and oligarchic in Brazil. The Documentary presents facts, and makes us realize how recent history unfortunately tends to follow and perpetuate the old models. It causes reflection on the importance of democratic acts, on the construction of self-opinions, and on how we are still vulnerable to being induced by the medium and a numerically small but great perceive of privileges. My sincerest congratulations to the entire production.

A chaotic documentary about the wave of populism in Brazil that swept in a Trump-like president and has ushered in an era of extreme religious conservatism.

"The Edge of Democracy" is clearly meant to be a warning to the world about this kind of populism that is happening everywhere -- about how easily it can happen and the blows it can make to social progress. But the film is too frenzied and literally difficult to follow, which blunts its impact. If you don't already have a working knowledge of the key players and events covered in this film, you might find yourself struggling to keep up, as I did.

Grade: B

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Brazilians ''kyles'' think study history, geography and filosophy is useless and REALLY believe in flat-earth from youtubers.

Lacks information from a Native perspective but does a great job in summarizing the overall last 10 decades of Brazil's democracy. I'm not sure why it doesn't highlight a wider perspective in terms of historical political forces. Overall, it's interesting for a foreign person to grasp an overall idea, wish they dug deeper with this though.

The rise and fall of democracy in Brasil. A country where a prosecutor is also a judge. Must see.

I didn't want to see an unbiased documentary, don't think you won't see it either, this one is pretty biased and with reasons that are explained in the first moments. Production is great. Great. There is nothing to say about this aspect. As for the story told, the dictatorship really was hell. But the emergence of the PT involves many crimes that are not mentioned in the documentary, crimes like bank robbery, kidnapping, extortion... Unfortunately, we are very poorly represented in Brazil politically, both by the right and by the left. And the versions of the stories that both sides tell are only the ones they like. So this documentary is great (technically) for knowing the side of the story told by the left, but don't forget: There are always two sides of the coin... and this is just one of them.

And which fight isn't?

Not totally accurate, but you see history there.

As it tends to happen in Latin countries, where power comes in underlight shapes in a pretty small batch of untouchable true, there is no other way for commoners only feel all was and is truly fearful.

There is a misconception that Brazil is a country like its fellow friends from the North. It is not. It is still subjugate by history and limitless power like its brothers from the south.

It is a well-done cinematography and personal a point of view of a wacky historical political moment in history.

Someone just had to do it. And someone did.

Some still believe in the illusion that if a documentary only uses real scenes, then it speaks the truth. This film is proof that with some ability to choose what to show and what to hide it is possible to tell ANY story. I am saddened by foreign viewers who will only have access to this highly partisan view of Brazil. And I'm sad for Brazilians who still won't have the necessary reflection to understand how we ended in the Bolsonaro disaster.

It's kind strange to say, but I was like sleeping about what is happen is my own country, my Brazil that I live so much, that documentary show how we are going deeper in a dark part of our history again. I hope everyone that watch this movie, open their eyes for what is happening here.

Awesome work of all producers, especially to Petra Castro.