“Dark Horse” Film Scandal

Of all the unhinged diatribes and brazen lies of the Bolsonaro ‘movement,’ the forthcoming film “Dark Horse”, a hagiographic biopic of the ex-president and convicted criminal Jair Bolsonaro, is truly disturbing. Folk still argue about whether Leni Riefenstahl’s film “Triumph of the Will,” (1934), is a masterful work of art, or 114 minutes of Nazi Propaganda. It is certainly the latter, that for me at any rate, completely overshadows whatever artistic merits it might possess. I have only seen the trailer of Dark Horse, but three minutes was more than enough.  The deliberate inversion of objectively verifiable truth and the production of ideas that distort and camouflage social reality are the hallmarks of modern ideology. Propaganda, in which ever format it comes, ‘documentary’ film, advertising, or history books, is its most obvious vehicle. The film poster is in fact all you need to see, Jim Caviezel, draped in a flag in front of the Congress, eyes staring into the distant horizon, a man on a mission to save the nation. The choice of Caviezel is entirely appropriate. Fiercely religious, anti-abortion, QAnon defender, and Trump spokesperson, a man he described as the ‘New Moses,’ the trailer cuts from him declaring , “Brasil above everything, God above all,” to his confirmation as “the voice of the people”, and his hysterical proclamation to his equally hysterical flocks, “To foreigners, to environmentalists, to Hollywood paedophiles, this country is ours.”  Like Trump loyalists, Bolsonaro’s fanatical supporters believe he was chosen by God, yet more fuel to the atheist cannon. The film was scheduled for launch immediately before the forthcoming election in October but has been mired in scandal and not just because of its wilful distortion of history. It’s the brainchild of his two sons, Flavio, and Eduardo, currently a fugitive from justice in Miami. Together they have raised 134 million Reais for its production, three times the amount that it cost to produce the Oscar winning film about the military dictatorship, “Ainda Estou Aqui, (2024).” Half of the funds came from Vorcaro, the disgraced and imprisoned ex-banker, found guilty of the biggest fraud in Brasilian banking history and best mate of Flavio. There are also, as yet unproven rumours that large sums have ended up in Eduardo’s  account, and of Parliamentary grants being sequestered and sent abroad to help this exercise in sycophantic fantasy. There is good news, however. Such is the toxic nature and demonstrable vacuity of the project, that none of the big cinema chains have currently agreed to show it. It is to be hoped then that it gathers dust in a mouldy basement and never sees the light of day.