|
EL
BONAERENSE
6/10
Argentina
(Arg-Chile) 2002 : Pablo Trapero : 92mins
BUS
174
7/10
Onibus
174 : Brazil 2002 : Jose Padilha : 133mins
Two
films – one fiction, the other documentary - highlighting the scandalous
state of the police forces “serving” major South American metropolises.
In El Bonaerense, small-town locksmith and occasional petty criminal
Zapa (Jorge Roman) ends up, almost by accident, among the ranks of Buenos
Aires’ notoriously incompetent boys in blue – the ‘bonaerense’ of the
untranslatable title. Under-resourced, under-staffed, under-paid, under-trained
and over-stretched, the B.A. cops are spectacularly ill-equipped to cope
with the messy consequences of Argentina’s ongoing financial dire-straits.
While
essentially an amiable, well-meaning sort, Zapa’s anything-for-an-easy-life
attitude means he doesn’t turn a hair when exposed to the endemic corruption
and sloppy management practices of his superiors. This allows him to ‘rise
without trace’ until, at the end of the film, he’s able to return home
a decorated (and only slightly wounded) hero. Trapero films his own script
with a dry, ironic detachment, paying a patient and detailed attention
to Zapa’s surroundings in the sleepy country and grimy city. Despite mild
comic touches – the cops’ training contains one or two Keystone moments,
while Caneva (Anibal Barengo) makes the most of his minor role as a charismatic
conspiracy-nut officer – there’s no mistaking Trapero’s savage disgust
at the institutionalised incompetence of a self-serving organisation which
seems to regard the public as an impediment to the conduct of their ‘duties’.
Though
atmospheric and absorbing, El Bonaerense is ultimately rather more
successful as a polemic than a drama. While Zapa’s facelessness and inconsequentiality
are, of course, part of Trapero’s point, they also mean that the character
never really comes into focus to the extent that he can sustain our interest
over feature length. An undeveloped romantic sub-plot doesn’t help matters,
and the wry climax, though an unmistakable indictment of the bonaerense
system, is rather too low-key.
Bus
174, however, builds gradually throughout its (relatively) epic running-time
to a starkly powerful conclusion. Though firmly focussed on Rio de Janeiro,
the problems diagnosed in ‘Bonaerense’ apply no less strongly here. In
fact, if anything the Rio cops come across as even worse than their Argentine
colleagues. Director Padilha takes one specific incident – the June, 2000
hi-jacking of a packed downtown bus in downtown Rio – as the starting-point
for a wide-ranging investigation into the human-rights abuses perpetrated
by the putative enforcers of law and order.
Making
excellent use of the copious footage shot on the day by the city’s TV
crews, and after-the-event interviews with the surviving participants,
Padilha painstakingly reconstructs every detail of the four-hour stand-off
between the police and the hijacker, a petty criminal called Sandro. As
the emphasis gradually shifts to Sandro himself, we discover he harboured
a grudge against life in general and the police in particular following
the murder of many of his City
of God-type street-kid friends by a death squad some months before
in what was known as the ‘Candelaria massacre.’ As the wider circles of
guilt and blame are established, Sandro’s actions are analysed and explained,
but never condoned – he nevertheless emerges as the real victim of ‘Bus
174’ – not least because of the very messy mis-handling of the affair
by the bungling Rio cops.
Though
mostly adhering closely to the conventional documentary format – alternating
between raw footage and talking-head commentary, with much manipulative
muzak tying it all together – this is a compelling tale told with objectivity
and conviction. And there’s one terrific sequence, remarkable for its
style as well as its content, when Padilha ventures into one of Brazil’s
overcrowded jails and films the inmates, converting the image to negative
to protect their identities as they rail against the injustices they have
suffered – the invisible become visible, and the silenced are, briefly,
given a voice. This is a tragic story, but it isn’t without humour as
Sandro’s hostages recall ‘staging’ many incidents for the benefit of the
watching cameras. This incident will be unfamiliar to many viewers, so
there’s real suspense in the latter stages as we wonder exactly how it’s
all going to end. The answer, recounted in strikingly slowed-down video
footage, is jarring, sobering, but not entirely unexpected – especially
to anyone familiar with the techniques of the Rio force, or, indeed, their
brothers-in-arms from el Bonaerense.
22nd
February 2003
(both seen 30th
January, Rotterdam
Film Festival: Bus 174 at Pathe Schouwburgplein; El Bonaerense
at Rotterdamse Schouwburg)
For all the
reviews from the Rotterdam Film Festival click
here.
by Neil
Young
-
|
