Bus 174

When I was done with Mozartballs, I went to a pile of DVDs that I'd bought a few months ago on eBay for next to nothing. (Here's a secret that I don't want to spread around too widely: eBay has tons of great documentaries and foreign films that you can get for a song - especially if you can buy a bunch from a single dealer and save on shipping.) The one I was most interested in was Bus 174, a Brazilian film that examines a notorious bus hijacking that was televised live all over the country.

Bus 174 weaves together footage from the multiple cameras that captured every minute of the stand-off, interviews with hostages and police officers, and a meticulously researched examination of the highjacker's life. It starts with a breathtaking aerial shot of Rio, floating over the green of the mountains that surround the city, the mountainside favelas, the famous Copacabana beach, and the middle-class neighbourhood where the stand-off takes place. It's an organic and intriguing beginning that had me riveted. Director José Padilha carefully builds the backdrop for the story: Rio's street-kid problem, the effects of child poverty and homelessness, etc. By the time we get into the hijacking, we have an inkling of what we're in for, but not where we're going. And that's when the film really takes us on a ride.

I won't reveal too much, but the hijacker - who's high, desperate and very angry - turns out to have a history that's both predictable and surprising. The structure is masterful - things that happen during the stand-off lead seamlessly into elements of the backstory, which becomes more and more complex and surprising as the film goes on. And for viewers outside Brazil, who don't know how the story ends, there's edge-of-the-seat suspense.

The film does lose its way a bit here and there. At two hours, it's at least 20 minutes, maybe half an hour, too long. Some points are made over and over and interview subjects are allowed to ramble. This is a common problem with documentaries that aren't subject to the discipline of a broadcast length. I know the disciples of Peter Watkins - who decries the monoculture of "the universal clock" - will disagree with me emphatically. But the lack of any kind of clock just leads to a lack of rigour.

And finally, another thing I found fascinating about the film actually came out in the making-of featurette. To get fresh, insightful interviews from the survivors - who'd been interviewed so much that they had stock answers for everything - Padilha sat them down in a studio with a TV and a remote control. They watched TV footage of the highjacking - which of course they had never seen - and when they felt like stopping the tape, he would ask them questions. It's a great technique.

From the point of view of storytelling and technique, I found Bus 174 one of the most inspiring documentaries I've seen in a long time.