Bus 174: A Rio De Janeiro Documentary

The second largest city in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, is well known for its beautiful, distinct landscape and vibrant culture. Less known are the city's poverty-stricken slums where crime is a part of daily life. Enormous disparities between the rich and poor classes lead to a society that ignores the pressing social issues at hand. Thousands of street children, forced into lives of crime to survive, become invisible to society. Sandro do Nascimento was once a street kid, and is the subject of Jose Padilha's documentary film Bus 174. The film describes Sandro's hijacking of a bus on June 12, 2000, the ensuing five hour stand-off with police, and the tragic end, all through media footage that broadcast the disaster live to millions of viewers in Brazil.

The incorporation of direct cinema and cinéma vérité modes in Jose Padilha's documentary film Bus 174 effectively provides a comprehensive representation of its content in order to present an objective view of reality. As a documentary, Bus 174 constructs its own interpretation of the reality of the events that took place that day. Through media footage alone, Sandro's actions can only be seen, but not explained. By delving deeper into the history behind this event, the director is able to give a more complete story that presents a more broad perspective. The television camera footage not only gives a subjective portrayal of Sandro, but it also demonstrates the influence of the media on his actions. Elements of direct cinema are used as a point of departure for the discussion of deeper meanings behind his violent actions. The cinéma vérité mode is used through interviews and testimonies to give insight to Sandro's life. The interweaving of these documentary modes reconstructs facts and events within their broader contexts and historical significances to create a distinct portrayal of reality. The film is able to give implications of the larger social issues that contribute to these rampant violent crimes.

The direct cinema mode is incorporated in the documentary through the editing of many hours of stock television footage. Due to inadequate training, the police made little attempt to secure the area, which resulted in unrestricted media coverage. The media frenzy turned a simple bus robbery into a complex hostage situation, as camera crews and police swarmed the bus, leaving Sandro with no way to escape. The footage used in the documentary is in direct cinema style because the filmmakers, or camera crews, are objective observers. They are merely capturing the events as they play out, and not altering or trying to shape them. The media influenced Sandro's behaviour, thus shaping the events in cinéma vérité mode without the intention to do so. When Sandro became aware of the television cameras surrounding him, he acknowledged them as having the power to give him visibility, as well as security. Sandro was invisible to the rest of society, but "once trapped inside, with the cameras rolling, the young man who had felt invisible all his life realizes that, for once, all eyes are on him" (Farouky). He saw the media attention as a way to become visible, and thus important. Sandro began to act more dramatically for the cameras, and instructed the hostages to make the situation seem worse than it really was. Forcing a hostage to write in lipstick on the bus windows shows Sandro's attempt to gain attention. The hostage was also aware of the cameras, and said "I had the feeling that the whole world would be seeing that, that it would be broadcasted." Pretending to shoot a hostage is another "instance of the performative in Sandro's behaviour" (Staats). A policeman in the film said Sandro's "level of violence is directly related to the presence of the cameras," and a hostage in the film said "I believe that the television allowed him to feel powerful, since he knew that he was being filmed and that he wanted to be filmed."

The presence of the cameras not only influenced Sandro's dramatically violent behaviour, but provided a sense of security as well. The chances of the police killing him on live national television were slim, making him feel safe. "The media is something that provides confidence to the kidnapper. Of course! It's the certainty that I wont be executed, killed!" said Rodrigo Pimentel, member of the Brazilian Military Police, in an interview for the documentary. To Sandro, the cameras had a crucial importance; his life would be guaranteed as long as the media was watching. The media presence in turn influenced the behaviour of the police. The television cameras deterred police from taking immediate action and using a sniper to take out Sandro and end the hostage situation. This delayed the situation and put the lives of the hostages at greater risk. The presence of television cameras influenced the behaviour of those subjects being filmed. Sandro, the hostages, and the police all behaved differently because they were on camera. By impacting the way the subjects acted, the media shaped the events that took place. Not only did it influence what happened, it also allowed for huge quantities of footage to be filmed, and then used in the documentary in direct cinema style.

This particular documentary mode has its weaknesses. There is a lack of history and context. Sandro's reasons for robbing the bus remain unknown. His life and personality prior to the hijacking cannot be told through stock footage of the event alone. The filmmakers cannot express a personal point of view through this type of footage. Padilha accounts for this minimal expression of personal perspective by incorporating cinéma vérité into the documentary. This shifting of documentary modalities works to "engage the participatory and supposedly observational footage of Brazilian media and surveillance in a participatory and reflexive manner of reinterpretation" (Staats). The documentary expands on aspects of Sandro's life to explain the context behind his actions. Interviews with hostages, witnesses, media, and the police are used to reconstruct Sandro's past. The documentary shifts between media footage of the hijacking and the history of Sandro's life; it expands on things Sandro says in the television footage to make them more understood. This works to "communicate and make visible not only the forms of power and control that influence and subject Sandro, but also reclaims Sandro from said subjectification" (Staats). In his aggressive rant to the police and surrounding media, Sandro speaks of his mother's murder, the massacre at Candelária Church, being in jail, and the way the police tormented him as a young child growing up in the streets. These incidents are put into context and made clear through interview testimonies and extensive documentary research. Through the cinéma vérité mode, "the concept of cinematic truth regarding Sandro's intentions aboard Bus 174 becomes prevalent" (Staats).

The documentary tells how Sandro saw his mother stabbed to death when he was a toddler, which caused him to run away to live on the streets. He began committing crimes to survive, and developed a cocaine addiction to deal with his emotional trauma. Sandro was at Candelária, where he saw many of his friends murdered by police, and was frequently in and out of prison. The documentary's description of some of these prisons provide some of the most horrific and moving scenes of the film. The discussion of the inhumane conditions that prisoners are forced to live in is important in relaying the film's message of social injustice. It shows how these street children are victims who are turned into violent criminals by the institutions of prison and police that are put in place to keep them in control, and how they only add to the problem. The stylistic element of using a negative image while in the prison is also extremely powerful in providing haunting images of the faces of those in prison.

Through Sandro's story, the documentary reveals the larger issue of street children in society, and the brutality of institutions that have contradictory effects on them. Sandro is stuck in a poverty-crime cycle; similar to most street children, he must steal and rob to survive the extreme poverty he lives in. The cinéma vérité participatory style of documentary reveals this society's issue of street kids being turned into violent criminals because they are systematically denied any kind of social existence. It demonstrates this in a way the direct cinema style of television footage could not. However, this more participatory style of documentary has weaknesses as well. The nature of interviews requires that an excessive amount of faith be put into the witnesses. The viewer must believe the subjects are representing the truth. The integration of both documentary modalities presents a more objective view of the situation, in "an effort to provide an honest and probing investigation of Sandro by means of intentionally asserting the primacy of the mode of representation over the object of representation" (Staats). Placing form as more important than content, Padilha combines both styles of documentary in a comprehensive view of the situation that explores its deeper historical and sociological contexts. The use of both modalities of direct cinema and cinéma vérité allows Bus 174 to become a documentary that is more than a simple dissection of the events that took place. The media could only display this story as a mere relaying of the facts of the incident. By incorporating participatory elements, the film is able to use the plight of an individual to describe the broader and more comprehensive sociological issues of street children, violent crime, and a desensitized society.

The opening shots of the documentary are reflective of Sandro's story as a representation of many, and of a society struggling with poverty. The opening aerial shots depict the route that Bus 174 took through the city before it was stopped. In an interview by David Ng, director Padilha comments, "The reason I chose that shot is to tell you that even though the movie is the story of an individual, it's actually representative of the whole city. The best way I found to do this was to show these images of the city in a big, visual way." During the documentary, aerial shots are used again to reflet this idea, as well as to show the cable towers that work to transmit the live broadcast, and the distance from the hijacked bus to the palace where the final call was made. The largely televised broadcast of this event in direct cinema style shows its subjectivity to Sandro. The media's inability to reconstruct the truth in the way the documentary could is important in understanding how the media shapes the views of society about these issues. The "perverse situation of racism and discrimination, both within and from the media, especially on TV, reflects not only historical and psychological aspects of racist practices in Brazilian society, but is also the result of a series of economical and political elements which have privileged the poor in every section of economic, political, and social life" (Santos). This leads to a reflection of the role of the media in the presence of social inclusion and exclusion in Brazil. The documentary implicates society's larger issues, but goes even further to suggest the media is at fault for these constructed perspectives that have become normal.

The deeper discussion of Sandro's life, although important to a better understanding of the issue, can also work negatively for the documentary. For example, there are too many questions that are brought up by the historical research, but are left unanswered. Sandro's reasons for hijacking the bus are never made clear. The role of his aunt in his life is somewhat confusing. As his only living relative, why did she not take care of Sandro, and instead let him run away to live on the street? Questions about the old woman who adopts Sandro as her son also arise. Why did she take care of him, and why did he stray from the good life she says he wanted? Although a deeper reflection into Sandro's past leaves more questions unanswered, it is still a positive element of the documentary in reconstructing the reality of the situation to provide a deeper context.

The shifting of modalities between direct cinema and cinéma vérité in Jose Padilha's Bus 174 work to provide a more complete and inclusive perspective on the subject. The interweaving of observational stock footage with participatory interviews and analytical research give the viewer a better understanding of the complexities of Sandro do Nascimento, a street kid who turned into a violent criminal adult after growing up in impoverished, brutal conditions. The presence of the media during the hijacking of the bus was instrumental in impacting the behaviour of Sandro, the hostages, and the police, as well as in the creation of live footage that provided a comparison of the different perspectives. The documentary film Bus 174 requires its viewers to think reflexively about the situation. Both sides of the story are represented, so that a single perspective does not outweigh the other. The film's objectivity allows for viewers to come to their own conclusions about Sandro as the perpetrator of the hostage situation, but also as the victim of an impoverished society with poorly organized institutions that breed violence. Bus 174 is most powerful in the way it makes the viewer think about issues that are larger than this one event, and the implications of such a tragedy on the future.

Bus 174. Dir. Jose Padilha. Arts Alliance America, 2002.

Farouky, Jumana. "Hell on Wheels: Documenting a real-life hijacking, Bus 174 explores the hidden, hopeless world of Rio's street kids." Time International 2004.

Ng, David. "Blame it on Rio." Salon Media Group Inc. 8 Oct 2003.

Santos, Regina. "Reflections upon racism in the context of Brazilian mass media reform." Media Development. 2004.

Staats, Hans W. "Onibus 174 (Bus 174): intention in the system of representation." CineAction. 2005.