An associate professor from the Department of Multimedia, Media, and Communication at the Institute of Arts of the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) analyzed Brazilian science fiction films, arguing that they function as a reflection of national crises.
More than sixty years ago, a little-remembered film by the producer Pedregal Filmes, titled O Quinto Poder (The Fifth Power), addressed the idea of foreign agents infiltrated in Brazil. These agents supposedly radiated subliminal messages through the country's radio and television networks, aiming to induce the population to violence and a purposeless revolution.
Directed in 1962 by the Italian Alberto Pieralisi and scripted by Carlos Pedregal, O Quinto Poder is today an almost ignored title, even among cinema connoisseurs. However, when revisited in the contemporary scenario—marked by attacks on the Supreme Federal Court, the proximity of the 2026 elections in a hybrid warfare environment, and growing evidence of foreign funding for jurists and politicians seeking to keep Brazil in a subordinate position—the dystopian plot of this film gains a profound symbolic meaning.
The idea that Brazilian science fiction serves as a late diagnosis of our crises, functioning as a lens on the country's democratic fragility, is not new. In previous works, the author had already pointed out that this cinema operates in a 'rare atmosphere,' presenting few works, but which persist in moments of great tension between modern advancement and archaic character, between development and external dependence.
In this article, it is proposed to examine some titles produced between the early 1960s and the end of the following decade from this perspective. These films not only anticipated the military dictatorship of 1964 to 1985 but also predicted, with remarkable accuracy, the current vocabulary used to discuss disinformation, the external financing of narratives, and institutional capture.
O Quinto Poder is considered one of the first examples of authentic Brazilian science fiction, or more precisely, a 'serious drama' film, following the classification given by Ismail Xavier in his book Allegories of Underdevelopment (1993), in contrast to the 'playful-carnivalesque' register predominant in much of the genre's production.
The central narrative of the film focuses on a foreign power planning to dominate Brazil using subliminal propaganda technology secretly transmitted through national communications. O Quinto Poder explored the paranoia of subliminal propaganda, a theme popularized after an experiment conducted by James Vicary in the US, during the screening of the film Picnic (Joshua Logan, 1955), at the Fort Lee Theater, New Jersey.
Legend has it that advertisements with phrases like 'eat popcorn' and 'drink Coca-Cola' were projected 12 times per minute onto the faces of William Holden and Kim Novak, resulting in a significant increase in sales of these products, although later experiments discredited the theory of subliminal propaganda in serious science.
Despite this, the myth of subliminal messages remained alive in popular culture. In the case of O Quinto Poder, this theme generated a hypnotic and little-known suspense, currently cult for some viewers. The film can be watched on Canal Brasil or on YouTube, featuring striking scenes, such as the one at the Sugarloaf cable car, which recalls a James Bond film (with Roger Moore), and an impactful and eloquent ending at Corcovado, facing Christ the Redeemer.
In terms of inspiration, O Quinto Poder evokes the cinema of great directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang, as well as the imaginary world of spy cinema that would consolidate in the following decade (James Bond and similar). The conspiracy driven by Pieralisi is no more complex or surprising than the biography of its originator and producer, Carlos Pedregal.
By replacing 'radio and TV antennas' with social media algorithms, the structure of the plot—a foreign power that uses dominant media and finances local agents to generate chaos, undermine institutions, and keep the country under tutelage—exactly corresponds to the architecture described today by the term 'hybrid warfare.' O Quinto Poder was once seen as a dark omen of the 1964 military coup; today, it seems to maintain a strange relevance, more than 60 years after its premiere.
This is not about imposing an anachronistic reading on a 1962 film for convenience. It is about recognizing that Brazilian science fiction, especially in the 1960s and 70s, acted eloquently as an 'allegory of underdevelopment' (Ismail Xavier's concept)—a way of 'saying the other' using coded language, during periods of censorship.
If, starting from 1968-69, the genre offered filmmakers like Walter Lima Jr. the syntax necessary to circumvent the dictatorship, it is relevant today to recognize that these same films already contained, ahead of time, the diagnosis of what we are living: an internal elite willing to give up sovereignty in exchange for maintaining privileges, and an external power willing to finance this surrender.
Besides O Quinto Poder, two other titles deserve attention. The Man Who Bought the World (1968), by Eduardo Coutinho, is another example of this line of science fiction that presents Brazilian views on the global geopolitical scenario. This film follows an ordinary individual involved, against his will, in an international plot during the Cold War, mixing espionage, science fiction, and comedy, which, seen today, functions as a metaphor for the average Brazilian citizen: a passive character in a larger geopolitical game, whose consequences fall entirely upon him.
Manhã Cinzenta (Grey Morning) (1969), a short film by Olney São Paulo, portrays Brazil in the near future where the military dictatorship employs technologies such as robots and artificial intelligence to judge and repress young dissidents. Manhã Cinzenta is a disturbing film, with a tragic behind-the-scenes story that led to the imprisonment of its director. Like the feature films Parada 88: O Limite de Alerta (José de Anchieta, 1978) or Abrigo Nuclear (Roberto Pires, 1981), it uses the language and syntax of science fiction to express what could not be openly said.
These cinematic echoes resonate to this day, albeit differently, at a time when the erosion of the foundations of the State and national sovereignty have returned to the focus of public debate in Brazil. Although these themes are not new, it is a fact that since democratization, and especially after the period governed by Bolsonaro, the true points of interest—national sovereignty, country resources, and economic growth in the context of BRICS—are obscured by ancient ghosts such as communism, inflation, and corruption.
Fortunately, such specters are faint and disappear into thin air, but they continue to cause damage by clouding the vision of about 50% of the electorate. The author does not suggest that the filmmakers of the 1960s could predict the situation of 2026. He proposes something more modest: that Brazilian science fiction, precisely because it operates in a 'rare atmosphere,' functions as a thermometer of Brazilian apprehensions regarding modernization, emancipation, external dependence, and the vulnerability of national institutions.