Hey,
@tented, just watched the full doc. First things first: I hate you, as I surely did not have the time to spare (or invest) on it.
But now that the milk is spilled...
I guess that the thing that will interest you most from my feedback as a Brazilian is about the realism/authenticity of both (completely different) halves. It is pretty real, I will go as far as saying that this is best foreign take on Brazil I ever seen. There are more to it? Of course it is, but it is an honest take, surprisingly free of a lot of bias and/or superficial analysis and/or focus on the secondary/pseudo exotic stuff that is so common out there (in the realm of foreign depictions of Brazil).
It is crazy, isn't it?
Some random thoughts:
I liked more the fist half, about Rio. I don´t know Rio that well, used to go there a lot to work, but I would stay only on the safe (relatively speaking) part of town. I have a few good friends from Rio, work with people from there in a daily basis. The app they mentioned ("Fogo Cruzado", meaning crossfire) is a real thing and I know people that used to check on it daily before going to or back from work (there are a bunch of others). Even from my superficial knowledge, but mostly from the people I know from there, I can tell that the picture shown is a pretty real one. The city is this crazy mix of civilization and savage brutality. People from there in general simply accept such craziness as being part of life.
The governor that appears on the video was arrested not long after that. If I am not mistaken 5 of the last 6 governors of Rio de Janeiro state (Rio de Janeiro city is the capital) ended up in jail.
Favelas are a Brazilian thing, you find it all across the country, but the ones in Rio are unique. They are larger (apart from the São Paulo ones, which are similar in size), there is the geography factor, the population density is absurd, there is a cultural aspect particular to Rio... is a complete mess. Right wing politicians don´t get it, left wing politicians somehow make them grow. Is completely hopeless.
The second half is taken in São Paulo, were I was born, and lived for a long time (fortunately I am out of that hell hole now, even if I need to go there monthly because of work). Some places shown and mentioned there were part of my daily life (the avenue closed to cars on Sundays, Avenida Paulista, where different demonstrators were shown, was really close to were I used to live. So many times I strolled there on Sundays, just to watch the crazy heterogeneous flow of different human types. Actually once I considered the idea of filming it and posting it here.
I have people from both political/social groups (and I mean the extremes) on my social circle, so I can tell you that the characters shown are representative (actually, the Bolsonaro supporters are "light" -- there are people waaaaay more radical, even factoring in the fact that they knew they were in front of the camera). The abyss seems impossible to overcome, but crazier things do happen in Brazil, so you never know... in this regard I am way less skeptical than in the previous one.
Of course I could write a million more things, but you probably already got most of them anyway.