Palintology.

Forced bonhomie? Yes, we can!So we watched the first episode of Michael Palin's new documentary about Brazil last night, and the question I kept asking myself as I sat there, prone as a calving manatee, is whether there’s always been an unspoken editorial mandate for his documentaries. I mean to say, has it always been the case that the filmmakers have refused to extend their remit beyond cuddly old Michael Palin having a genial, bumbling time, meeting interesting species of Johnny Foreigner and finding the best in everyone? Was there never really a commitment to a more polemical view if the need for such a critique arose? Or has it always been a case of leading middle England on a sentimental journey from the comfort of our sofas, with rain on the window and ready-meal to hand?

Because I can't get away from the feeling that what made the first episode so lacklustre was the absence of a more robust critical perspective. The story of the North East of Brazil is a brutal and tragic one and, while the show made reference to that history, it failed to acknowledge the role of those origins in the overarching narrative of the country. Instead, we had to visit some fucking infernal beach with cars parked on it, listen to a cod-intellectual analysis of some rubbish graffiti (São Paulo’s is much better) and cringe our way through some dad-style antics with a drum group and capoeira school. Of more lasting harm to the programme, however, was the way that failing to consider the lasting fissures that slavery and colonial exploitation have etched into the bedrock of Brazilian society limited Palin’s analysis of contemporary Brazil to the clichés of beer, beaches and blissful racial integration (the latter being a laughable notion to most Brazilians).

The fact is that Brazil, like most countries, is praiseworthy not in spite of its flaws, but because of them. If you don't tell the story with all its light and shade, the stuff that makes Brazil different – the noise and colour for which it is justly renowned – can all too easily seem mindless and brash, as opposed to a carnivalesque inversion and Epicurean fuck you to the immemorial sorrows of the past. That’s why the average holidaymaker who never delves beyond the surface patina of booze and babes will often leave the country with the nagging impression that Brazil is somehow unforthcoming or superficial.

'And then John Cleese slaps me with a really big fish.' Palin attempting to convert new Python fans with an explanation of the fish-slapping dance.It sounds obvious, but to progress beyond that misperception, you need to recognise that Brazil isn’t Europe, with its long cultural history, nor America with its idealistic origins (nor Arabia with its fertile crescents, nor Asia with its millennia of mysticism). Instead, you need to recognise Brazil for what it is: a very new nation with incredible natural resources but not much history (much of which is profoundly sad), and a pervasive legacy of ghettoised violence, insane bureaucracy and toxic capitalism (for a taste of which, read here)

Once you’ve done that, you need to get outside and wander the streets for a while to see for yourself the way that ordinary people get on with their lives in spite of all the problems I just mentioned; look how friendly they are, and how genuinely interested in each other's lives; notice how much pleasure they extract from the simple business of drinking a coffee or eating lunch or singing as they wash the car. It’s that, that little electrical current of optimism which fizzes up through cracks in the pavement, tenacious and irrepressible, which makes it possible to love Brazil.