O 5º Poder [O Quinto Poder / The Fifth Power] (Alberto Pieralisi, 1962)
Jan
27
television
Turn on your television on the day* in 1926 John Logie Baird demonstrated the first working TV. An unknown foreign agent manipulates Brazil's radio en television antennas to emit subliminal messages to the oblivious population. Slowly, society descends into violent chaos.
O 5º Poder precedes Ray Nelson's story Eight O'Clock in the Morning by one, and John Carpenter's adaptation They Live by 26 years. But what's much more fascinating is this film's place in Brazilian history: right between Professor Baskarán's – hypnotist Carlos Pedregal – televised mass hypnosis experiments from 1958, and the violent coup of 1964.
In how far was the population primed for this revolt? And how much, are you?
* In reality this was on January 26, 1926.