Seven Wonders of Brazil

Brazil, the largest country in South America.

Home to the world's greatest rainforest,

to the biggest river system,

famous for its sun, sea and samba.

Today, it's one of the world's fastest growing economies.

But that development has led to growing inequalities

in income and wealth.

Despite many protests,

it is hosting both the World Cup and, in 2016, the Olympics.

Football is worshipped here, like a national cult,

but Brazil has another much older religion.

One that has been here since its founding by the Portuguese

almost 500 years ago.

Outside of the United States, in terms of numbers,

Brazil is the world's largest Christian country.

While church attendance in Britain has been plummeting for decades,

here in Brazil it's the opposite.

I'm not a Brazilian,

but I'm fascinated by this country's mixture of people,

its religious history, its passion for music

and its celebration of life.

And at the heart of that life is a richly spiritual existence.

So, are you practising two religions or one?

TRANSLATION: Both are only one within the heart.

That's something that you can smell in religion here,

the mixture is everywhere.

I want to explore the incredible spiritual diversity of Brazil

by travelling to seven wonders.

At each, I'll meet people to help me understand Brazil's complex past,

what it means to be a part of this vibrant and exciting country,

the key ingredients that contribute to the unique nature

of Brazilian Christianity.

There are still a few weeks to go,

but the streets are already full as Rio de Janeiro gears up

for its world-renowned Carnival.

My name is Robert Beckford. I am a theologian

and come from a family with British, West African and Jamaican ancestors.

Well, I'm immediately struck at the incredible diversity

of the people here,

a bewildering fusion of race, ethnicity and culture.

For years, I have studied and followed the politics

and developments of countries that have forged new identities

out of colonialism, slavery and immigration.

Brazil was inhabited by numerous indigenous tribes for centuries,

but it was the Portuguese who first opened it up to the West...

..by accident.

On the 22nd of April 1500,

a small Portuguese fleet of just 13 ships and 1,500 men

were on their way to India, when by chance they sighted

the shores of what was later called Brazil.

The first Portuguese who arrived in Brazil

placed a cross on the shore as a statement of claiming

this new-found land for Catholic Christendom.

Two years later, in January, 1502,

a few Portuguese ships exploring the coast arrived in this bay.

Thinking it was a river delta,

they named it the January River or Rio de Janeiro.

It's not actually a river delta, but a large natural harbour.

Dominating it today is our first wonder -

the statue of Christ the Redeemer.

It's not just a wonder of Brazil,

but also now officially one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

This extraordinary statue towers above the Rio skyline

and has become an instantly recognisable symbol

of Brazil across the world.

As you arrive at its feet,

you see not only what an engineering marvel it is,

not only the amazing view in every direction,

but the grand ambition of its creators' vision.

When it was originally conceived,

just after the First World War, Rio was Brazil's capital.

A group of wealthy Brazilians feared an advancing tide of godlessness

and they wanted a big statue to help reclaim Brazil for Christianity -

a symbol to signify the redemption of mankind at Jesus' crucifixion

that could be seen all over the city.

So they decided to build it on the biggest hill.

It's an astonishing achievement

and you only fully appreciate it when you're up close.

Despite its immense scale, the subtle details are amazing.

You can actually see the marks of the nails in his hands

and his heart is clearly marked out, too.

It took ten years to build and is 30m tall

and, until very recently,

was the largest Art Deco statue in the world.

Under the towering figure,

I have arranged to meet Zeco de Mello.

He was a Catholic priest for 18 years,

becoming one of Brazil's pop-star preachers

before giving it all up to be a professor of theology

at a local university.

I think that the symbolism of the Christ the Redeemer

is mainly the protection that he inspires in us,

and also the hospitality -

he's facing the great bay so he's welcoming everybody.

What was the vision behind its creation?

Mainly to show how strong the Catholic faith is,

definitely connected to the supremacy of the Catholic Church.

Although it's meant to represent Christ at the moment

of his agonising death,

its real power for me is its open-armed gesture,

drawing you into Brazil,

a sense that anyone and everyone is welcome here.

Something that is clearly not lost on the five million tourists

who visit this site every year.

On the statue's 75th anniversary in 2006,

a special chapel was built into the base.

Weddings and baptisms can be performed here

and every Sunday there's a service performed by Padre Omar.

Anyone can come.

TRANSLATION: We've come to realise that this space

brings a lot of symbolism.

We saw the need to reopen the chapel, to become a place of prayer,

of meeting God, to really sense the great meaning of Christ,

the redeemer of the universe.

Padre Omar is not only a priest, he's also a singer.

And he wanted to explain to me that music,

especially Brazil's famous samba, was a key ingredient

in understanding Brazilian Christianity.

TRANSLATION: I use music as an instrument of evangelisation,

to make the message of Jesus Christ accessible to people.

TRANSLATION: So, this integration between music, the samba,

the Brazilian culture and the faith is of great importance

to us and to our communication with the city.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amen.

How do you reconcile bringing African traditional music, samba,

to Catholicism and bring the two together?

TRANSLATION: The Bible shows us that we should praise God

with our body and soul,

we should sing and dance in the presence of God.

And, in the same way, we do that,

joining the musicality of Brazil and our faith.

Like that, we created this important movement.

Samba is a very African beat.

How it came to Brazil

and was integrated into the culture is a key part of our story.

A clue to its origins lies 1,000 miles to the north

in the city of Salvador, the first colonial capital.

In the centre of the city lies

one of Brazil's oldest colonial churches -

our next wonder, the Sao Francisco Church.

This is magnificent.

Just look at the gold everywhere and the amazing, intricate work.

This is an interior that sets out to impress, to overwhelm.

Built at the height of Portugal's colonial empire in the 1700s,

it is a church designed to show off the wealth and power

of the Catholic establishment and the ruling elite of that time.

All the surfaces, walls, columns, vaults, ceilings

are covered with golden woodwork and paintings.

Brazil at the time was a major source of gold.

The church is a magnificent example of the baroque style of the time.

Francisco, what would it have been like

to have worshipped here in the 1800s?

The altar is spectacular.

Francisco, tell me the story behind the design of this altar.

So gold was definitely plentiful.

But this church hides a darker story.

When the Portuguese came to Brazil

they wanted to exploit this country for its natural resources.

And for that they needed manpower.

Massive manpower...and cheap.

They decided to import Africans as slaves.

Outside Africa, Brazil had the highest number of Africans,

all slaves, in the world.

The slaves, when they were first brought into the country,

the minute they put their feet on the ground

they had to be baptised.

They had to forget...try to forget their religions

and become Catholics.

The slaves stood here.

They were not allowed to go any further.

And as a concession they were given these two saints to pray to.

One of the worshippers at the church is Vandete.

Her ancestors were slaves,

brought here from Africa in the 1700s.

She is a follower of a religion that for over 400 years

has kept alive some of their original beliefs and traditions.

Today, it's known as Candomble.

Candomble temples are called casas, or houses,

and Vandete is taking me to one of the largest in Salvador.

Candomble is a kind of adaptation

of certain aspects of popular Catholicism

to an African belief system

that the slaves maintained when they came to Brazil.

DRUMS AND CHANTING

Brazil was the last country in the world

to officially abolish slavery.

Until very recently

Candomble followers could not openly perform their rituals and practices.

CHANTING CONTINUES

'Candomble became the focus of police repression.'

Candomble sects were very often raided by the police.

That was at a period of time

when Brazilian governments wanted Brazil

to become a kind of "European" country.

The head priestess told me that to avoid prosecution

they even had to conceal their religious icons

behind statues of Christian saints.

-TRANSLATION:

-Here's an altar.

But inside here it's hollow, it's empty.

So you'd have here, for example, St Anthony.

But inside, underneath, would be an African god.

So the African gods were hidden behind the Christian saints?

Yes, because of the prohibition.

They said the ceremonies caused fear

because they didn't know the symbolism of our religion.

They didn't respect it

because those were black people's things,

people of African origin.

Today, nearly two million Brazilians

claim to be followers of this religion.

It translates as "a dance to the gods".

They use the repetitive and rhythmic music and dance

as a call to the spirits.

At its height, the dancers enter into a trance-like state.

-TRANSLATION:

-It should be made very clear

that we understand that religion for us

is an expression of spirituality.

Christianity, Candomble, Spiritism,

these are the same with different names.

But the great, great essence is religiosity. It's the feeling.

What I've seen here

my ancestors would have practised in Africa centuries ago

and it's still taking place here in Brazil,

nearly 400 years on!

Worshippers of Candomble believe that every person

has their own individual Orisha, or god,

who controls their destiny and acts as a protector.

Vandete invited me to the beach to offer thanks to hers.

SHE SINGS:

-TRANSLATION:

-I came to the sea

to thank the mother goddess for my daughter's health.

She went through a surgery

and I asked for her to come out unharmed,

healthy and strong.

Whenever I have a health problem or difficulties in the family

I seek her help, who is the mother of all Orishas.

The extraordinary thing

is that Vandete is also a practising Catholic

and sees no problem in combining the two traditions.

My grandmother used to take me to the church to attend the services

and she'd also bring me to the sea to offer thanks.

At the same time I went to pray in church,

I'd also come and pray in the sea.

So the sea and the church are inside my heart.

Here I worship the goddess, the mother of nature,

and there I pray to Mary, the mother of Jesus.

-So are you practising two religions or one?

-No.

Both are only one within the heart.

Like Vandete's ancestors, mine were slaves, too.

They were captured in Africa and taken to the Caribbean.

And they also brought their beliefs with them.

And despite the brutal and dark years

of persecution and oppression,

the memory of Africa could not be completely erased

and lives on in that unique Brazilian sense of music and rhythm,

that dance to the gods.

And in the samba music that came out of it.

What makes Brazil so unique today is that despite its brutal past

it has managed to take something

from each of its different communities.

The Portuguese introduced Christianity.

The African slaves brought music and dance.

But there were also hundreds of indigenous tribes already here.

So I wondered what contribution they might have made.

For that I needed to travel even further north,

into the heart of the Amazon jungle for our next wonder.

Here in the most unlikely of places,

in the city of Manaus,

at the heart of the Amazon rainforest,

stands this grand building.

The Teatro Amazonas

or the Amazon Theatre and Opera House.

The end of the 19th century

was a boom time for the Amazonian region of Brazil.

It was flush with money from exports from its large rubber plantations.

Manaus quickly became one of Brazil's richest cities.

And this opera house was to be the jewel in the jungle,

a symbol of the triumph of Christian civilisation.

The rubber barons were making a lot of money, you know,

in that period - really, really a lot of money.

They didn't know where to spend it.

The Amazon was really not a place

that people looked at in Brazil, at all.

It meant savagery, really.

It had this very negative connotation in Brazil.

And these people were making money and wanted to show,

"No, we are civilised as well."

At the time it was a major engineering project,

as much of the building material had to be transported from Europe

and then brought more than 1,000 miles

through the newly cleared rainforest.

Built in the 1890s by the immensely rich rubber barons,

mostly European immigrants,

it was an attempt to reproduce the grandeur of a bygone age.

A little bit of European splendour in the middle of the Amazon.

# O Monumento... #

The walls, statues and the columns

are made with marble brought from Italy,

as were the chandeliers.

The ceiling tiles came from France.

For a building in the middle of the rainforest

it's pretty impressive.

# Gloria di questa

# E delle eta future... #

In its heyday this was full of the great and the good of the city.

It was the place to be seen, to show off your wealth.

The main hall boasts four levels with seating for 700 people

and a ceiling painted to look like the underside of the Eiffel Tower.

And when opera was first performed here

it really put Manaus on the international map.

But within 20 years of being built

artificial rubber was invented

and Brazil's rubber boom evaporated almost overnight.

The wealthy barons moved on and the opera house closed down.

For nearly 90 years there were no performances.

15 years ago, the then Brazilian government

revived the building and restored it to its former glory.

Today it's used for music shows, dramas and even choral singing.

THEY SING

The opera house is now also used

to promote Brazil's indigenous cultures.

Fidalis is an indigenous Indian

and has also become a famous Brazilian actor.

What does this venue mean to you?

-TRANSLATION:

-Nowadays there's a tendency

to pay more attention to our local culture.

And that has brought more indigenous people in here

and they feel this is theirs.

Although our ancestors laboured here,

today we feel the Amazon Theatre is also ours

and has become a part of the life of the people.

This place was built by Europeans

to explore their culture and their religion.

What's your religious tradition?

-TRANSLATION:

-I live between two worlds

that I understand as religion today.

I mean, the world that I live here, the churches,

the choirs in the churches,

and the world of my own childhood, where I was born,

which is the world of my ancestral religion.

So it's basically that - one foot in the city

and another foot in the tribe.

One day I am inside a church watching a choir with the priests

and the next day with the shaman.

I mean, these two worlds are what makes us Indians today.

It's this mix and merging of faiths

and very different cultural traditions that make

Brazilian Christianity one of the most diverse in the Americas.

THUNDER RUMBLES

The early Portuguese missionaries used Manaus as a starting point

in their attempts to convert the many indigenous Indian tribes

living in the rainforest.

It was the Jesuit priests who managed to stop the many massacres

that took place as the early settlers opened up the forest.

Fidales wanted to take me to see his home village

in the rainforest outside Manaus.

There are still more than 800,000 Brazilians

who identify themselves as Indians,

divided into 200 different tribes, many with distinct languages.

Most live along the rivers of the Amazon rainforest.

Many practice a mixture of Catholicism

and their own ancient traditions.

Can you show me around? I am looking forward to seeing more.

What are your spiritual beliefs?

HE SPEAKS PORTUGUESE

TRANSLATION: Well, we Indians, we have our natural beliefs,

which is that we have our God of the universe,

who is the grandfather of the universe, the God of the world.

So, it's the only god we believe to be God, but we also believe that,

when we live in this world, we came from another,

the first indigenous world.

We transformed ourselves into this material world, and we will die here.

We believe we then go back to the mythological world

from which we can transform ourselves again into another species.

You can be an animal, or you can be a woman in a different time.

So, that's what we believe.

But we believe in God. We are also Catholics.

And so we believe that God exists,

but within our Indian mythology, that is what we believe.

Indian beliefs in the souls and investing nature

with symbolic importance

also mixes with Portuguese Catholicism

in those areas where there were a large numbers of Indians

being bought into Portuguese colonial society.

THEY SING

TRANSLATION: We talk and believe about

the souls in the purgatory in Catholicism

and so do the Indians.

And this connection between the Indians and the souls

passed on to the Brazilian Catholic tradition.

On Monday you go and light candles to the souls.

All this comes from the Brazilian indigenous world.

It's amazing to see two such separate and different

belief systems work side by side.

The Indian chief had no difficulty in equating his belief in

the everlasting nature of spirits

with Christianity's belief in the soul.

For me, it's this fusion of religious beliefs,

this willingness to mix the best of both worlds,

holding on to the integrity of the Indian past

without denying the importance of Christian belief,

that is another key ingredient in Brazil's own brand of Christianity.

ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS

Catholicism in Brazil was strengthened in

the early 20th century with another large-scale immigration

of people from Europe - mostly working-class Germans and Italians.

And again, like the first Portuguese and the African slaves,

they brought their beliefs and traditions with them too -

a desire to recreate a little bit of the old country

in their new Brazilian home.

Our next wonder of Brazil -

the Metropolitan Cathedral in Sao Paulo.

It is this building that to me

symbolises the magnificence of Catholicism in Brazil.

It's the largest cathedral in South America,

but its history highlights the fact that by the early 20th century

Catholicism in Brazil was facing a crisis of identity.

At a time of massive social, political

and industrial change in Brazil, this building was an attempt to

re-assert the power and magnificence of the traditional Catholic Church.

This neo-Gothic cathedral could be in almost any large

industrial city in Europe.

It was designed by German and Italian architects.

Its dome is a copy of the one in Florence and its marble

and organ were imported from Italy too.

So it seems there is a bit of a sense of a crisis of identity

going on here. Is it really Brazilian or European?

-TRANSLATION:

-It was a choice. It was a choice perhaps slightly misplaced

in time because this cathedral was built in the 20th century.

It was decided that the church would be monumental,

large, in a beautiful style that would also say something

about the architectural tradition of the church, of the history

of the church, and that is why a neo-Gothic church was built here.

To be Brazilian is to always try to be European.

It is part of the Brazilian dilemma. To be civilised is to be European.

You just have to choose which part of Europe you want to emulate.

CHURCH ORGAN PLAYS

THEY SING HYMN IN LATIN

The Sao Paulo Cathedral Choir is one of Brazil's most well known.

And they still sing in Latin -

the language of the old European Christian tradition.

THEY CONTINUE SINGING

Ronaldo Santurbano is the choirmaster.

That sounded really amazing. Can you tell me, what were you practising?

Today we are here getting ready for the Mass

that is going to be celebrated. We have weekly rehearsals.

Everyone here is a volunteer - they're the soul of our choir.

He is also the man in charge of

an elaborate bell-ringing system in the cathedral.

I noticed in the practice you were singing in Latin.

I just wondered, do you always perform in Latin?

Or do you sometimes sing in Portuguese?

-TRANSLATION:

-We are inside a cathedral where we can't forget that

music in our own language is very new for our church.

It's only 50 years since the Second Vatican Council

allowed us to have music in Portuguese.

We can't forget the tradition of the sacred music in Latin,

the Gregorian chant, the great sacred music from the past.

BELLS RING

For centuries the Catholic Church had a complete monopoly

of power over Brazil's religious life,

but in the mid-19th century many of the restrictions were lifted

and a new wave of Christian missionaries

started to arrive from abroad. Many came from the United States,

and one group built their first church here in Rio de Janeiro.

Our next wonder - the Igreja Presbyterian Cathedral.

After the Roman Catholics, the Protestant Church is

the largest Christian denomination in Brazil.

But it was not always like this.

For hundreds of years during the Portuguese colonial rule,

Protestant Churches were severely persecuted.

Today they are the fastest growing of all the Christian churches,

with nearly one-in-five of Brazilians now claiming to

belong to some form of Protestantism.

Gone is all the gold and the silver and other Baroque ornamentation

that we have seen in so many of the Catholic churches.

The Protestant Reformation was brought about by a desire

for a simpler, purer form of worship -

a rejection of the pomp and pageantry of the Catholic Church.

And you can really see it here.

You know, this, one of the oldest Protestant churches in Brazil,

is so different in its simplicity and style,

in contrast to the Catholic churches here.

But what was so radical about this cathedral was not what was in it

or how it was decorated, but its very existence

as a public place of worship. As until then,

only Catholics had been allowed to build churches.

The official religion was Roman Catholic

and all the other religions, Jews included, were not permitted

to build buildings in church style. Only as a house.

When the Republic was proclaimed in Brazil, of course

there was a separation between State and Church,

and then we could build a building as a church.

Is the Presbyterian tradition in Brazil growing?

Our denomination, that has over 4,000 churches in Brazil,

we were organising one new church per week.

Today Protestantism in Brazil is divided into hundreds

of different denominations.

One of the most popular are the Pentecostals,

and they are building hundreds of new churches all over the country.

Pentecostalism is an extraordinary phenomenon,

across the world, in terms of how fast it is growing.

I have first-hand experience of this. I was raised a Pentecostal.

The Pentecostals dispense with many of the more traditional

forms of worship and emphasise a more direct relationship with God.

They are now the fastest growing denomination in the country,

doubling their numbers to nearly 50 million believers

in the last 30 years.

Pastor Samuel Ferreira is one of Brazil's most famous

Pentecostal preachers and leads this church.

CROWD APPLAUD

GOSPEL BAND PLAY

What's the attraction of Brazilian Pentecostalism?

-TRANSLATION:

-The Pentecostal world, the Pentecostal doctrine,

and the Pentecostal Church brought God much closer, they made God real.

Nowadays you go to a Pentecostal church because you want to feel God.

You want to worship God.

That's why you see people crying, people raising their hands,

people of all ages.

SINGING CONTINUES

For me, the passion and the energy that I have just seen here

makes Pentecostalism unique,

as it manages to mix traditional elements of Christian worship

with chanting and dancing and trance-like euphoric outpourings,

drawing on Brazil's other religious traditions.

Brazilians have taken an American import

and given it a distinctive Brazilian identity.

THEY SING HYMN IN PORTUGUESE

I think Pentecostalism is doing well in Brazil for different reasons.

Mainly I think the sense of community is I think

something very important, they work a lot in the poor areas

so they give them a sense of belonging to a community.

Also the propaganda, the way they work, they work very professionally.

So they have the targets to achieve.

And another thing, I think that we love parties,

we love the festivals.

So the Pentecostal Church and charismatic movements

is all about being happy, singing a lot, clapping hands.

And we are very good at that. I think that's a big part of it.

SINGING CONTINUES

This is definitely not the sedate, hallowed Christianity of the state,

it's the noisy, passionate Christianity of the people.

And its growing popularity is a major worry

for the leaders of Brazil's Catholics.

TRANSLATION: It is a cultural phenomenon,

which takes place at a time of very big cultural changes,

where people feel self-governing

and want to be self-governing in their choices.

I certainly look at this situation with some worry.

For centuries, Brazil struggled with its own identity.

And this has been reflected in its relationship with Christianity.

Was it a European, or an African, or a South American nation?

How could it fuse all the elements into a cohesive whole?

When it was decided that the capital should be moved from Rio to

a more central location, a unique opportunity arose to help

create a new identity for Brazil by building a completely modern city.

There is Brazil and then there is Brasilia,

a city unlike any other in this country.

It was built to show the ambition and aspiration

that this country could aim for.

The city was built in the 1950s as a showpiece of the very latest

in building design and urban planning.

It has now been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site

because of its modern architecture.

And at its heart is a completely new cathedral...

Our next wonder of Brazil -

the Metropolitan Cathedral of Our Lady Aparecida.

These four figures - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -

mark the continuity of a religious tradition,

but the building and the landscape don't.

The style suggests to me that religion has moved on.

The cathedral was designed by one of Brazil's - and the world's -

most famous architects, Oscar Niemeyer.

Stylistically it marks a complete break with Brazil's colonial

Portuguese, African and indigenous Indian past.

Gone are any references to European neo-Gothic and Baroque cathedrals.

Instead, it is a uniquely South American building -

a symbol of a new Brazil.

On this journey, I have seen some wonderful buildings,

places of worship, sights that reflect the history of this country,

but this is so different,

this is of the Brazil of the present and of the future.

What makes this building distinctively Brazilian?

The free way and the inclusive way in which it welcomes the visitor

and makes him feel part of the universe in a way

that he connects himself directly to the skies, to the natural elements.

So in some respects it was a symbol of equality and inclusion by making

it circular and making the focus the heavens rather than the priest.

The whole point was to bring a sense of secularity to the place

through the direct contact of the person who gets in with the heavens.

Here in this cathedral, the style is more informal, more popular,

more focused towards a new generation of believers.

In this space, with the light pouring in,

the colours, the angels up there,

I think this is what Catholicism here is hoping for -

inclusion, progress, modernity -

but will it be able to hold on to its historically dominant role?

Modern architecture always points to the future.

It always has a desire for change in it.

It always empowers the person so he can feel himself able to be

an agent of change.

THUNDER RUMBLES

And then in this way

it points to the future, to a better future I hope.

I am back in Rio, where last-minute preparations are now

under way for our final wonder.

This wonder is not an architectural marvel

but a celebration of what it means to be a Brazilian.

For me, it combines all the ingredients

we have encountered in Brazil's evolving relationship with

Christianity - dance, music, worship and passion.

Here at the office of the mayor, they are celebrating

the inauguration of a new symbolic leader of the city.

ANNOUNCEMENT IN PORTUGUESE

Every year, a figure known as King Momo

is selected from a number of hopefuls.

Traditionally a tall, fat man, a figure of mockery, satire and fun.

He has been chosen to lead our final wonder of Brazil - the Carnival.

The handing over of the keys to King Momo symbolises his reign

over the city, the beginnings of the festivities.

CROWD APPLAUD DRUMS BEAT

For the days of the Carnival, he will - in theory - represent

the people of the streets, the poor and the marginalised,

as they take over the city.

DRUMS BEAT

It's subversive. It's very subversive somehow.

It's the one day that even the poor people are going to be like kings.

We always want to celebrate, and this kind of cathartic movement...

And it's very religious because of that.

The origin of Carnival, the name "carne levare" is like to

say "goodbye to the meat" because you are going to start Lent.

It's ancient and it's very religious because of that,

so it's also very Christian.

CROWD CHEER

-Pleased to meet you.

-Hi, Robert. Pleased to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

What is the history of Carnival?

TRANSLATION: The origin of Carnival is religious.

It started as a response to the period of Lent,

and it became well established in the Middle Ages.

Lent is a time of denial and deprivation,

and so before this period begins

many people go into a frenzy of festivities, parties, celebrations,

all this before the start of Lent, which is on Ash Wednesday.

Carnival in itself is a religion, particularly in Brazil.

It's a declaration of love that the people have to Carnival,

which is almost a dedication.

The samba schools are like sanctuaries, where you go

praise your gods, the gods of samba, of Carnival, this kind of thing.

SAMBA MUSIC PLAYS

Every part of the city is involved in the festivities.

Neighbourhoods organise street parties

and processions that often have special themes.

This one pays homage to ancient Egyptian gods.

I have come to one of the largest samba schools - Estacio -

as it makes its final preparations.

In a few days' time, it will compete with its rivals from around

the city, with everyone hoping to be judged the best samba parade in Rio.

Chuvisco is the chief percussionist,

and it's his job to work out the moves and keep the music in synch.

Luana will lead the group, hoping to be crowned

Samba Queen at the end of the carnival.

DRUMS BEAT RHYTHMICALLY

WHISTLE BLOWS

PERCUSSION RATTLES

At the heart of every Carnival procession is of course that

unique Brazilian blend of samba, music, and dance.

RHYTHMIC MUSIC

What does samba mean to Carnival?

Well, samba is like the Brazilian soul of Carnival.

Carnival is not a Brazilian celebration, it's European,

which was born in Middle Age Europe.

But here in Brazil and in Rio de Janeiro,

it has acquired this Brazilian soul.

Samba is what defines Brazil during the Carnival.

PEOPLE CLAMOUR LIVELY MUSIC

CROWDS CHEER

You may find this hard to believe, but this just a warm-up

to the grand finale that takes place this evening.

During the course of the day, over a million people will

parade along this street. It's incredible.

Originally, all the final parades were held in the city centre.

But today they have a purpose-build samba stadium

and everyone in the city is now heading there.

The competition is fierce and every samba school's parade will be

judged on aspects of their themes, music, costumes and dance.

Despite the fun, it's serious stuff for the competitors.

How are you feeling?

A bit tense about going into the stadium, but that's normal.

Now, we must try and keep cool

so we can guide this wonderful percussion band.

But I'm sure that we're going to do a great performance.

Most people coming to the Carnival or watching on television

just want to enjoy the world's biggest street party,

but if you look you can see each of the ingredients from our wonders

and how they combine to make Brazilian Christianity so unique.

I think that religion is very present in Carnival.

There is this kind of euphoria, this kind of proclaiming that life

can be different somehow, even for just four or five days.

That's a very religious and powerful movement,

something that changes you,

you can feel the energy, it's something transcendent.

Good to see you again. How do you feel?

TRANSLATION: It's a lot of emotion, my heart is racing.

We're very confident.

We've rehearsed a lot, our school is coming to fight for the title

and we're sure to be champions.

All the best. Good luck.

Brazilians have taken all the diversity, the mixture,

the amazing fusion of cultures that makes this country so different

and used them to transform the Carnival

into a uniquely South American event.

Carnival today has become an expression of Brazilian culture

and identity and it has taken on a life of its own.

LIVELY MUSIC AND FIREWORKS

In the street parades and processions,

you can see the welcoming of Christ the Redeemer

as he overlooks the city.

In the wild and colourful costumes,

you can see the glitz of the decorations that adorn

the old Catholic churches, like the one in Salvador.

With the incredible beat and rhythm of the samba,

you can see the dance to the gods

that the African slaves brought with them.

And finally, with that desire to create something unique,

to have the biggest, noisiest, rowdiest street party

in the whole world, you can also see the true Brazil

in this, our final and most extraordinary wonder.

DRUMBEATS AND LIVELY MUSIC

FIREWORKS EXPLODE