Most helpful customer reviews
|
|
He escaped violent death, only to find it later, in a different way., Jan 8 2007
"On July 12, 2000, the Rio de Janeiro police trapped a man who was trying to rob a bus. He took eleven hostages, and the local SWAT team was called. This incident became known in Brazil as the Bus 174 affair". That is the way in which this Brazilian documentary, directed by Jose Padilha and Felipe Lacerda, begins.
Truth to be told, I was afraid it was going to be too violent. I wasn t wrong, but there is much more to "Bus 174" than violence. This documentary includes live footage regarding what happened, but also interviews with street kids that knew Sandro, the man who ended up as the main protagonist of this tragedy. He didn t have a purpose, he didn t ask for anything, he just was stopped in the middle of a robbery and ended up trapped in a situation he couldn t handle.
The documentary allows us to be witnesses to Sandro s life, and to the events that would take him from his home, to the streets, a reformatory, prison and finally bus 174. Some interviews with a social worker, a sociologist, a journalist and the mediator that worked in this case allow to shed more light on this event, and on Sandro s life. For example, we learn that Sandro never knew his father, and that he witnessed the murder of his mother at a young age. After that, he ran away from his home and started living in the streets, joining a gang of "meninos da rua". Sandro was also one of the survivors of the "Candelaria massacre" of children that lived in the street, that happened in the early 1990 s. He escaped violent death, only to find it later, in a different way.
In general, I think that the directors are trying to point out that the reason why Sandro, a victim of the "Candelaria massacre", became the perpetrator of another tragedy is not circumstantial, but has to do with a system that allows many children to be invisible to those that are well off, until the children grow and confront them with violence. In my opinion, that conclusion may be pertinent for Brazil, but it is also relevant for many other countries. Social exclusion and disregard are never valid answers.
All in all, highly recommended.
Belen Alcat
|
|
|
|
Amazon Home
See all customer reviews...
