Bus 147

Earlier in the year, Brazilian cinema found its way into the international spotlight with the release of Kátia Lund & Fernando Meirelles's gripping feature film City of God (Cidade de Deus). Critically acclaimed and commercially successful, the film is an unflinching look at the lives of young boys from favelas, or slums, who become involved in the violent, drug-dealing gangs that populate Rio de Janeiro. Although the film does not shy away from portraying the squalor of the favelas or the brutality of the streets, its protagonist is a young boy whose obsession with photography gives him an outlet to detach himself from these harsh events and to ultimately escape from the slums.

What makes José Padhila's powerful new documentary Bus 174 so disturbing is precisely this lack of redemption on display. In addition, however close City of God comes to depicting the realities of life in the favelas (indeed, the film does not shy away from a documentary-like approach at times), at the end of the movie those reassuring credits appear before us, reminding us that these were only actors (albeit some who had grown up in the slums), that this was only a movie. In Bus 174, we receive no such comfort. The events that unfold onscreen are lifted directly from news footage on the day in July 2000 when a young man named Sandro highjacked a bus full of ten people.

In a recent article in Cineaste, Paul Arthur pointed out the tendency of "cutting-edge" documentary practitioners, such as Andrew Jarecki, Michael Moore, and Steve James to "pump the dramatic quotient" of their films by imposing a "grossly manipulative dramatic structure" on their subject matters that often distorts their actuality. [note] In Bus 174, there was no need for the filmmakers to create a sensational dramatic arc; the events of that day told a riveting story all their own. In this case, Padhila's role is simply to fill in the blanks, to provide a backstory for a simple event that became a symbol of a national catastrophe.

Interspersing interviews with hostages, SWAT team members, and friends & family of Sandro with news footage of hijacking itself, the filmmaker creates a spellbinding picture of a city in urgent need of reform. As it turns out, Sandro first entered the streets around the age of six, shortly after witnessing the brutal murder of his mother. With no other family to speak of (besides an estranged aunt and sister), he swiftly fell in with the gangs in order to survive. As he grew up, drug addiction and jail time followed.

A former street kid who knew Sandro is on hand to relate stories of passerbys who would drop heavy rocks on the heads of sleeping homeless kids, and also recounts the details of a still-unsolved massacre of street kids witnessed by Sandro and most likely involving the police. The rage of the surviving street kids is palpable as they speak of the vast discrimination they face on a daily basis. They claim that they have become invisible to the society at large, and that their only way to grab people's attention (not to mention survive) is to revert to a life of crime.

This is where the media comes in: due to police incompetence, local news crews swarm the bus just as the hijacking is beginning. Although he initially tries to shield himself from the cameras, Sandro is soon staring into them defiantly, asking the reporters to take a good look at a face that has seen more violence and abuse than most people could ever comprehend in their lifetime. He specifically mentions the street massacre he witnessed, and overall seems to crave his newfound attention as antidote to the vast neglect he has experienced for most of his life.

While Sandro uses the cameras as a soapbox, the media winds up complicating things considerably in terms of SWAT team intervention. As one of the SWAT team members explains, standard procedure in such a situation would usually call for a sniper to target the hijacker. In this case, however, the government is vehemently against such an action, as they do not want Sandro shot dead on live national TV. The complications that ensue ultimately prove tragic.

Having had no previous knowledge of this incident, I felt absolutely shattered upon watching the outcome. Still, one cannot help but marvel at the way Padhila has managed to turn the country's overwhelming animosity towards Sandro into a riveting, sympathetic narrative of the social injustice that threatens to consume Brazil if it continues to go unaddressed. Bus 174 is a step in the right direction.

Note: Paul Arthur, "True Confessions, Sort Of: Capturing the Friedmans and the Dilemma of Theatrical Documentary," Cineaste Vol. XXVIII, No. 4, p. 5.