THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL: RISE OF THE BOLSONAROS
BBC Two, 9pm
Yet another story of a charismatic provocateur who was elected to a high office and turned out not to be the saviour he set himself up to be. This fascinating three-part documentary focuses on the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, whose premiership has been mired in controversy and scandal since his election in 2018. It examines in close but expansive detail how this former army captain with harshly authoritarian tendencies and a great flair for self-publicism rose from the more eccentric fringes of the Brazilian political theatre to snatch leadership of South America’s biggest and most powerful nation – despite almost everyone in the political elite believing it would be impossible for him to actually win.
The campaign for Brazil’s next presidential election is already in full swing, so the series takes a timely, if very unflattering, close look at Bolsonaro’s political rise, along with the role that his three sons have played in bolstering his grip on power and how he has set about reshaping Brazil during his time in office. Possibly the rest of the world, too, if his tacit support for devastating climate change-affecting levels of destruction of the Amazon rainforest, mostly to clear space for cattle grazing on a tremendous scale, continues apace.