Bus 174

Dir: José Padilha, Felipe Lacerda

2002

*****

Bus 174 is a Brazilian documentary film and the debut film of director José Padilha and co-director Felipe Lacerda. It tells the story of an incident in 2000, when a young man from a poor background called Sandro do Nascimento, held passengers on a bus hostage for four hours. The event was caught live on television with all four corners of the bus in full view. Padilha’s documentary not only examines the incident but it also goes beyond the scene, exploring what life is like in the slums and favelas of Rio de Janeiro and how the criminal justice system in Brazil treats the lower classes. Within the film, Padilha interviews former and current street children, members of the Rio police force, the Rio BOPE police team, family members, and sociologists in order to gain insight into what led Nascimento to carry out the hijacking. Nascimento witnessed the murder of his mother as a young boy and ran away from his home to live a life on the streets soon after. Some years later in 1993, at the age of fifteen, Nascimento resided in the area of Candelaria, a historical church in Rio de Janeiro, where he witnessed the Candelaria church massacre on July 23. According to survivors, on the morning of July 22, 1993, the day before the massacre, a group of children threw stones at police cars, with some of the policemen allegedly saying "don't worry, we will get you soon!" to threaten them. As the children from the Candelária Church area were usually only given warnings by policemen, the young perpetrators left without worrying too much about the threat. At midnight, several cars with covered license plates came to a halt in front of the Candelária Church, and the occupants began shooting at the group of roughly seventy street children sleeping in the vicinity of the church. Nascimento managed to escape unharmed but the event had a huge effect on him. Eight children were killed and numerous others were wounded outside the Candelária Church. Subsequently, during the investigations the shots were found to be fired by policemen, and fifty officers were accused of the massacre. One of them, Mauricio da Conceição, died during a shootout as he was about to be arrested in 1994. Two others, Marcos Emmanuel and Nelson Cunha, were handed sentences equivalent to life sentences. One of the children that survived that attack was supposedly shot several times before he could testify against policemen that were to go to trial and ended up fleeing from Brazil in order to save his life. A social worker who later tracked the fate of these homeless survivors of the Candelária massacre found out that eventually 39 of them were either killed by police or by elements of street life, and discusses this in the documentary. Nascimento would later scream on television cameras about social injustice in Brazilian society while holding his weapon to a hostage's head. Amidst his threats, Nascimento argued that mainstream Brazil ignored the poor and destitute to the point of denying even the humanity of the homeless. The footage is shocking. It was June 12, 2000,  when Nascimento boarded a public bus (bus #174) in Jardim Botânico, Rio de Janeiro. He was armed with a .38 caliber revolver, with the intention to rob the passengers. However, moments after he announced the robbery, a passenger signaled to a passing police vehicle, prompting the police to intercept the bus. Nascimento took the passengers of the bus hostage. The bus was soon surrounded by police officers, television news crews, and onlooking civilians, with all of them getting right up close to the vehicle. Nascimento at first assured the passengers, the police, the television crews and their viewers that he did not intend to kill anyone. He demanded weapons and a new bus driver (since the original driver had escaped through a window) to aid in his escape from the scene. As his demands went on ignored, he then threatened to kill a hostage at six o'clock that evening. Nascimento singled out several of the hostages for dramatic demonstrations over the course of the event. He repeatedly used the hostages as human shields. Nearing seven o'clock, Nascimento fired his revolver, bluffing the execution of hostage Janaína Lopes Neves to those outside the bus. The other hostages were told to act as if the execution had occurred. At 06:50, Nascimento exited the bus, using schoolteacher Geisa Firmo Gonçalves as a human shield. As Nascimento's attention was being held in one direction, an officer armed with a sub-machine gun approached Nascimento from behind. Just prior to the officer reaching him, Nascimento turned directly toward the officer and reacted by jerking away from the officer, falling to the ground, taking Gonçalves with him. The officer reacted by continuing his advance and firing two or three shots at Nascimento while doing so. None of these shots struck Nascimento. Nascimento then murdered Gonçalves. Officers then converged on Nascimento and Gonçalves as they lay on the ground. Surrounding crowds rushed the area and all of it was captured on live television. Nascimento was immobilised by the police and taken into custody. Nascimento could be seen to be alive at the time he was placed into a police vehicle. Some time after being taken into custody, he died of asphyxiation. There were later assertions that Nascimento was intentionally killed by the police and that his death was revenge for the public nature of the hostage event. The officers who took him into custody were charged with murder but were later found not guilty by a jury. Gonçalves was shot four times. Police reports concluded she had been shot once in the face by the advancing police officer and then three times in the back by Nascimento in the ensuing struggle. The officer's shot was ruled unintentional by a court. The archive television footage of the event is exciting and full of suspense and it really got my heart racing. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen, just like I’m sure many a Brazilian couldn’t when watching it as it happened on live TV. The realisation that I was watching it as entertainment was disturbing. I’m torn, as I’m glad that it was filmed so we know what happened but it should never have been aired live and the media and other spectators should have been no-where near the scene. It’s horrific when you look at it. The way the street kids live and are treated is also shocking. Nascimento did wrong, no question, but they were the actions of a broken man forced into a terrible situation. There is sensation here but the story isn’t sensationalised, the facts of the incident are laid out as they happened, are analysed and the background – how this sort of thing could happen – explored. It is how all documentaries should be handled and it is all the more interesting because of it. Thanks to Bus 174 and Bowling for Columbine, 2002 marked the beginning of a whole new wave of great documentaries, some of which – such as Bus 174 – are yet to be matched.