Bus 174 (2003)

On June 12th, 2000, a young man named Sandro Rosa do Nascimento hijacked a bus in Rio de Janeiro with the intention of robbing the passengers inside. When one of the passengers notified a police car, the bus was intercepted and Sandro took all the passengers hostage, armed with a .38 caliber revolver. Soon enough, the bus - Omnibus 174 - was a media frenzy, with everything being broadcast live to the watching public. What ensued was not only a sign of the ineptitude of the Rio police force, but an insight into one of the most serious societal problems in Brazil - the invisible homeless.Sandro's story began years before the events of Jose Padilha and Felipe Lacerda's documentary Bus 1974. Through friends and witnesses, we learn about Sandro's childhood as he witnessed several horrific acts, such as the murder of his mother in front of his very eyes, and the events of the Candelaria massacre which saw the murder of eight homeless children by men thought to be police officers. But we also learn how the homeless in Rio de Janeiro are simply ignored by citizens. This abandonment by your own society can cause serious psychological defects, that lead the homeless to feel they have no place in the world.We get a real insight into how Rio de Janeiro treats their lowest of citizens (the prisoners) in a stand-out scene which I never wish to see again. Turning the image into negative to somehow try and shield us from the true horror, the camera pans alongside a tiny prison cell that holds between 40-50 prisoners. They each have their own unique story, which they rant to camera. They are forced to take turns to stand up and lie down, to p**s and s**t where they eat, causing disease to spread like wildfire, and all in 100 degree heat. This is not a place interested in rehabilitation.This is documentary film-making at it's most thrilling and disheartening. The hostage situation plays out like a check-list of police malpractice and ill-preparation. At one point, Sandro shoots at the ground, feigning the execution of a hostage, and then hangs his head out of the window to tell the police what he has done. Many times this happens, still the police do not take him out. The same year saw the release of City of God, a super-stylised account of Brazil's ghettos, so it appears that Brazil was turning an big eye on itself and its societal problems. At 150 minutes, this is a long and detailed documentary that tends to repeat itself every so often or draw out an event in the hostage crisis, but Bus 174 will no doubt leave you moved and, more importantly, angry.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

This is a riveting and intelligent documentary. It would have been interesting if it had just been about the tragic bus hijacking itself with the inept police response and the media carnival atmosphere that existed. But it goes far beyond that. It explains the background as to why this happened. We are given the details of who the hijacker was and his upbringing in the favelas of Brazil. He was orphaned at a young age and lived in the streets with other homeless children. Crime became a way of life, as well as frequent violent episodes with the police.Watch this - it gives an excellent background examination into why bad things happen and then innocent people suffer fatal consequences. It does not portray this as a 10 minute sensationalistic news episode. We can a full 360 degree view of root causes.

I saw this movie over 4 days. I Tivo'd it and then had to stop after twenty minutes, take time off and then come back to it. Then my wife got involved so I started it again, from the beginning. She dropped out after an hour. "It's too depressing, I feel so helpless, I know there's going to be people killed." So I finally got through it. Wow! It is a documentary about a "street kid" who holds passengers on a bus hostage. For some reason, and this is how the documentary was able to be made, the media was allowed to camp next to the bus. This proves to be the reason the police find themselves hamstrung to resolve the situation in the professional way - which to be blunt would have been to put a bullet through Sandro's head when he gave them ample opportunity - out of fear of letting the TV audience see them act harshly.It's a movie that covers so many levels, and yet it only tells part of the story. I hated the protagonist, I felt sorry for him. I hated the police, I empathized with them. While the plight of the street kids is covered well, and justifiably is unapologetically sympathetic to them, it is balanced by the reality of a dangerous, hopped up kid with a gun, who wants the audience to see him that way, while telling his captives that they are all part of a media play.As one of the captives says: "There were two dialogs going on, the one in the bus ("act scared, pretend I've killed you") and the one (projected to the police and media to the outside"- namely:)"I'm going to kill this bitch at 6 o'clock." We can guess the ending! While the drama plays out the movie takes us off on explanatory side trips. We learn about how Sandro became a street kid, after watching his mother murdered, and then become a glue sniffing lost boy, stealing and robbing for his food and his fix. The movie condemns Brazil's society for creating Sandro's, then ignoring him, and then punishing him brutally when he breaks the law. It's the kids against the police, and the police are just adult versions of the kids: poor, desperate angry males given a job with no training.Read the papers in the last week and you'll see that over 175 of these kids were massacred by police for defending themselves, and it's a recurring theme in Brazil. The street kids are the Sunni and the police are the Shia death squads! What's missing is the story of the police, and the biggest piece of all the story of how/why Brazil got to be this way. The movie doesn't try to offer answers, but it's one hell of a cautionary tale for the future! Think of all the urban mazes that are producing angry, alienated, desperate young males. Think of how they can be manipulated by those who wish to use them for their agendas. Here in the US, in D.C., a trial of a man who used just such a malleable kid to help him pick off a dozen people with a rifle. Then there are the slums of the Middle East and Africa....

Bus 174 is a documentary based on the hold up of a bus by a young man named Yvonne Bezerra De Mello in Rio De Janeiro in the year 2000.This is a shocking but truthful story of a young man with a troubled life. Bus 174 was a very well shot and organised documentary, although violent and crude, very well done. It was a very real feeling while watching it.Real footage was used for the majority of the documentary other parts are fictionalPros Realistic, Well filmed.Cons none