São Paulo – A TVT this Saturday (27), at 9 pm, the documentary Jango, by Silvio Tendler. Almost two hours long, the film was released in early 1984. Just before the 20th anniversary of the coup that deposed João Goulart, the only Brazilian president to die in exile (in 1976, in Argentina).

Author of approximately 80 works, Tendler had already launched The JK Years in 1980 – later he would do others by addressing former President Juscelino Kubitschek. His film about João Goulart appeared in the final phase of the dictatorship, when Brazil was experiencing the commotion of the Diretas Já campaign, but would still see a president (Tancredo Neves, another character of the filmmaker, in 2011) being indirectly elected, until the population had again the right to choose their main ruler. This only happened again in 1989.

Resignation, possession and coup

Jango narrates the trajectory of the gaucho politician, sponsored by Getúlio Vargas, of whom he was Minister of Labor. Elected vice president in 1960 (the elections for president and vice were separate), he was brought to power with the resignation of Jânio Quadros in 1961. The military did not accept his inauguration, considering him ‘communist’, and the crisis has set in. The solution was to quickly sew an agreement to approve parliamentarism in Brazil, in order to reduce the powers of the president.

A plebiscite in 1963 restored the presidential regime, and João Goulart recovered his powers. But his government was tense to the end, with conservative sectors conspiring openly. The so-called grassroots reforms were seen as signs of “communism”, something far removed from Jango’s thinking. In the documentary there are dramatic moments, such as the Central do Brasil rally, days before the coup, and the sailors’ revolt.

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