Olga is a 2004 Brazilian drama directed by Jayme Monjardin, inspired on the book of same name about real-life German-born Jewish communist Olga Guttman Benário Prestes, who assisted revolutionary leader Luiz Carlos Prestes in his attempted coup
against the Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas. Initially presenting herself as his wife, the two genuinely fall in love with each other during their mission. Unfortunately, the coup goes south and they are arrested with Olga being deported to Nazi Germany and sent to a concentration camp where she would die many years later as another victim of The Holocaust.
Olga provides examples of the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Olga is shown to be trained in combat and shows off her badassery by saving fellow Communist Otto Braun from his trial. As such, she is assigned as bodyguard to Prestes and assist him in his revolution.
- Artistic License – History: The movie has some examples of that
- Getúlio Vargas in real life was not involved at all in the deportation of Olga, nor was he an actual Nazi sympathizer. Said act was instead done by the Brazilian Supreme Court without his influence. Although Vargas's authoritarian state was partially inspired by Fascist Italy, he eventually declared war on the Axis Powers and would align himself with the left after the war.
- The real life National Liberation Alliance was not lead by Luiz Carlos Prestes at all, and they even had frictions between eachother as the ANL was a big-tent leftist group with several tendencies inside, meanwhile Prestes and the Brazilian Communist Party desired to create a proletarian dictatorship that would follow Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy.
- Bittersweet Ending: Olga is sentenced to the gas chamber, but at least her daughter Anita was released into the care of her grandmother Leocádia, who lived in Switzerland and protected her.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Subjected to Rodolfo Gholdi, an Argentinian co-cospirator to Prestes, who gets captured by Vargas' secret police.
- Chummy Commies: Both Olga and Luiz are explicitly communists backed by the Soviet Union and depicted as straightforward heroes.
- Despair Event Horizon: Luiz crosses this when Olga is deported to Germany while she is carrying his child. Olga herself crosses this when she is forced to give up Anita.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Adolf Hitler, of course. While Vargas serves as the direct antagonist, he greatly reveres Hitler, who never appears in the story and acts mostly through his officials.
- Evil Is Petty: Vargas sentences Olga and her daughter to certain death when he deports them to Germany all so he could spite Prestes for trying to oust him.
- Face Death with Dignity: The last shot of the movie shows Olga inside the gas chamber, having accepted her fate and
- Historical Badass Upgrade: The real life attempt at a communist takeover was an Epic Fail for Luiz due to his poor decisions such as anouncing his plan and victory before it even happened and his call to action to fellow army men being found by anticommunist officers, leading to quick action by the government and a devastating defeat for Prestes.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: Getúlio Vargas is depicted as an open Nazi sympathizer that gladly deports Olga to Germany explicitly to spite his political rival, while she is pregnant no less with a German officer commenting how she would make a "fine gift to Hitler". While its true that Vargas persecuted communists during his regime in the 1930s and was very much a dictator thennote , he also persecuted fascist movements such as the Integralists (a fascist party in Brazil that were big fans of Mussolini), ultimately sided with the Allies during World War II despite trade deals with Germany, and implemented revolutionary labor laws and pro-worker reforms that made him famous as Brazil's "Father of the Poor". After World War II, Vargas unexpectedly became a populist social democrat defending democracy, and welcomed socialists into his coalition, including his old enemy, Prestes.
- Imperiled in Pregnancy: As if being sentenced to a Nazi concentration camp wasn't bad enough, Olga is sent there while pregnant. Olga ends up giving birth to her daughter in a concentration camp and ends up being forced to give her away just so she wouldn't have to die in that place.
- Karma Houdini: Getúlio Vargas remains in power after the failed coup, while Prestes is sent to jail and Olga dies in a gas chamber. Even worse, the failed uprising allows him to consolidate his power and because of his assistance to the Allies, his crimes are pretty much glossed over.
- Missing Mom: Anita grows up in Switzerland, while her mother is still in the concentration camp and even though she never met her, still misses her greatly.
- La Résistance: The "Aliança Nacional Libertadora" (National Liberation Alliance), the anti-fascist party led by Prestes against Vargas.
- Oh, Crap!: Olga (and by extension, the audience) react this way when she see that the ship she is about to board while pregnant has a Nazi flag.
- President Evil: Getúlio Vargas is the President of Brazil and depicted as the main villain of the movie.
- Supporting Protagonist: Olga to Prestes. She is the main protagonist, but serves as second-in-command to Prestes.
- Those Wacky Nazis: They serve as even greater bad guys to Vargas' lackeys.
- Traumatic Haircut: Olga's hair is shaved while in the concentration camp.
- Undercover as Lovers: Initially, Olga serves as Prestes' bodyguard and second-in-command masquerading herself as his wife. Until they fall in love for real.
- Young Future Famous People: Otto Braun, a notorious Communist activist that would later serve as adviser to the People's Republic of China, appears at the start of the movie being broken out of prison by Olga.
- Wardens Are Evil: A nameless female Nazi warden that watches over Olga is very cruel and unfeeling (no surprise, given Olga is both Jewish and a communist).
