Bus 174

On 12 June 2000 a man took bus 174 hostage in Rio de Janeiro. The siege lasted four and a half hours and was broadcast live; the channels ran it without a break, a crowd gathered, the police surrounded it. The documentary uses that footage and cuts to another story between: who the hostage-taker was. The subject is not the siege but how that man was made. Sandro do Nascimento grew up on the street, saw his mother killed, and survived the 1993 attack on street children sleeping outside the Candelária church. The film assembles that history piece by piece and presents the bus as its result. The form interleaves two sources: the live broadcast and interviews conducted since. Those speaking include hostages, police, social workers and people who knew Sandro. The section on prison conditions is the harshest passage. It is José Padilha's first feature. He later became known for fictional films about the Rio police, and this documentary is regarded as their precursor; the view of state violence he built starts here. Who it is for: viewers interested in social documentary and recent Brazilian history. Who it is not for: anyone unprepared for footage of a real death; the film shows the end of the incident from the recording.