If you ask me, too much TV is a nice problem to have—even though it can feel a little lonely watching, say, supernatural goings-on in Belgium (Hotel Beau Séjour), serial murders on the French coast (Witnesses), or gangsters in sunny Spain (Crematorium) without knowing if anyone else is doing the same.
But so be it. I like the scavenger-hunt quality to Netflix right now—and I checked out The Mechanism in that spirit. This eight-episode police drama about corruption at the highest levels of Brazilian society slipped quietly onto the streaming service at the end of last month. It didn’t look like a water-cooler show, but, hey, worth a shot.
Turns out, this is superb TV, a complex law-and-order procedural in the vein of The Wire—and a useful primer to the headlines pouring out of Brazil. Would you like to know why the country’s former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been imprisoned following a massive graft investigation? The Mechanism is a good place to start—it depicts the early years of an operation like the one that has ensnared him. Some supporters of the leftist Lula, who was recently leading in election polls ahead of a vote in October, and was poised for a triumphant return to office, are furious at The Mechanism and its creator José Padilha for what they say are liberties in the storytelling. Former President Dilma Rousseff, who has also been caught by corruption allegations and was impeached in 2016, called the show “underhanded and full of lies.” With the left in disarray following Lula’s imprisonment, the stakes are high and a #DeleteNetflix campaign has erupted on Brazilian Twitter.
Padilha, who was a producer on Netflix’s hit series Narcos, has been unapologetic, acknowledging some liberties in the show’s script (a disclaimer opens each episode and names of recognizable politicians and business people have been changed) but also telling a Brazilian newspaper that the broader story the show tells is true. “The left was and is just as corrupt as the right,” he has said. “The Mechanism has no ideology.”
That was my takeaway. The Mechanism isn’t didactic or overtly political. Its mood is, rather, angry and melancholy, as it tells a David versus Goliath story about ordinary federal police officers in the southern city of Curitiba, Brazil, who want to take down a corrupt political and business establishment. The two leads are Marco Ruffo and Verena Cardoni, played by Selton Mello and Caroline Abras—neither of whom have much been seen outside of Brazilian film and television, but both are utterly convincing as down-to-earth cops who make barely enough to scrape by, even as they watch millions wash through the economy above them. As the series opens, their first target is Roberto Ibrahim, a currency dealer and money launderer who slides through the political establishment with impunity.
Ibrahim wins round one, destroying the career of Ruffo, leaving Cardoni to carry on his work with a team of underdog investigators. She builds her case slowly and methodically, battling with supervisors and prosecutors who show fickle interest in following dirty money. The scenes where she finally ensnares a wealthy oil company executive are thrilling. There are more pleasures here: Like Narcos, The Mechanism, which was shot on location, benefits from a vivid sense of place. The swooping aerial photography of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Brasília is jaw-dropping, and loving shots of sinuous Oscar Niemeyer buildings in Brasília are architecture porn of the highest order. Will The Mechanism be a water-cooler show? Some Netflix offerings take their time becoming hits (see Wild Wild Country). I bet this one will, too.
