Netflix Is Suddenly a Huge Political Issue in Brazil
In April 2016, Netflix announced it had greenlit a fictional television series based on a very large, very much ongoing corruption investigation in Brazil. Titled O Mecanismo, or “The Mechanism,” the show, which debuted in March, follows a team of federal police investigators working to uncover a multi-billion-dollar kickback scheme implicating much of Brazil’s political and economic elite. Lava Jato, the real-life probe on which the show is based, has targeted pervasive corruption surrounding Petrobras, the state-owned oil company. As with the real Lava Jato, the investigation depicted in the show began at a car wash (the meaning of “lava jato” in Portuguese) used by a politically connected bagman to launder dirty money, and leads all the way up to some of South America’s most powerful people.
José Padilha, the creator of , first rose to fame in Brazil with the films, which depicted violent police operations in Rio de Janeiro’s shantytowns, or favelas. As in are the heroes, fighting righteously against overwhelming forces of evil. Padilha has also served as a producer of , the popular Netflix series about the hunt for Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. , his film about a real-life Israeli commando mission to save Israeli hostages in Uganda, was released in the United States last month.
