December 8, 2003
Film picks
If you like movies but think schlepping over to the Geoegetown googleplex to watch Honey could be construed as cruel and unusual punishment, there is hope.
Visions in Dupont Circle is showing Bus 174, a Brazilian documentary about a 2000 bus hijacking that briefly riveted the country. Although very dramatic, it’s different from the fictionalized hostage-situation movies you’re no doubt familiar with. Usually, the lines are set very early in the film, with the negotiator (either a hardass or a sympathetic softie) verbally sparring with the hostage-taker (either purely evil or misguided and confused). The media are like vultures, hovering noisily above waiting to pounce.
Bus 174 is different – the hostage-taker isn’t smart or old enough to know what he’s doing and the police are too badly trained to even sufficiently cordon off the idling bus from the media, which accounts for the excellent footage in the film.
More than anything, this film is about what happens at the intersection of society and chaos. A street kid with no hope and a violent past, he could be anywhere in the third world – but he’s not – he’s in Downtown Rio de Janeiro, a modern city that could be anywhere, reminding the moviegoer that the sort of desperation and chaos that leads to arm-chopping, village-burning civil war in Africa can come to so-called “civilized” places.
As for the ending, it’s perhaps the most riveting part. For a documentary, it has quite a few plot twists and a very strong narrative.
A date movie it’s not, but if Scary Movie 3 or The Matrix: Revolutions made you lose your faith in celluloid, this is your chance to get it back.
Posted by rj3 at December 8, 2003 3:51 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.smorgasblog.com/cgi-bin/mt/smorgastb.r740.cgi/144