Bus 174

Saw Bus 174, a documentary about a hostage situation on a bus in Rio De Janeiro in 2000. The film uses this situation to explore the motivations of the gunman, Sandro, and by extension to examine the plight homeless children of Rio De Janeiro. As the events of the day unfold, we interview the survivors, the police, the family of Sandro, but not Sandro himself in an omission which becomes more and more alarming. The sympathy of the film is clearly with Sandro. We hear that he had an alcoholic father, a mother who was murdered at random before his eyes, had been in and out of prisons, and had watched his friends being gunned down by cops who would rather the homeless children be dead than help them.

The film is pretty rough to watch. It shines lights on problems that are overwhelmingly difficult, that have no easy solutions. Due to weak crowd control, we are told, the media was allowed to get right up to the bus full of hostages. A sociologist tells us that the greatest difficulty of the homeless kids is that they are ignored and treated as if they were invisible. The survivors tell us Sandro loved the cameras, they made him feel important. Yes, he would most likely die, but perhaps after a life of being ignored and beaten, it was better to go out in a blaze of attention than to die at the hands of bored teenagers in a few years time.

The film is very effecting and delves deep into these problems. It exposes systemic problems with underfunded police and overcrowded jails, cycles of violence aided by a chain of corrupt politicians reaching, the film hints, even to gubernatorial levels. An interesting and emotionally punchy documentary.