Having a good subject often already is half of the work, for any
documentary. This movie has a pretty good and intriguing subject, that
besides does a good job at exploring and dissecting its subject
thoroughly, from as many different angles as possible.
It's not simply a documentary that tries to tell things as they
happened but also one that goes deeper into things and explores the
background of those involved. It gives the documentary multiple layers
and also plenty of depth.
It's one that shows how acts have consequences and how a vicious circle
can have great consequences, when it keeps spiraling down. It perfectly
shows the situation in Brazil at the time and puts the finger on the
sore spots. It criticizes but without condemning anyone. It's a real
fair documentary in about every way imaginable; to the police, to the
hostages, to the hostage taker and everybody in between, that was in
one way or another linked to the events or to the people involved with
it. It tries to create an understanding for all of the different sides
involved and most of the time it succeeds at this.
It's what makes this a very compelling documentary, that is giving you
a lot of inside information and makes you look differently at this
particular event and maybe just even crime and violence in general and
the involvement of the media.
It's a documentary that uses both real archive footage of the hostage
situation as well as freshly shot interviews with some of the people
involved. There is a good balance between these two different things
and the archive footage strengthens the interviews and vice versa as
well.
It doesn't really mater if you already were familiar with the subject
of this movie or not. If you weren't; it's giving you all of the
information you need and if you were; it's giving you lots of new stuff
to ponder about and perhaps makes you even look at it differently, even
if you already had a very strong, preset, opinion towards it.
Simply a good documentary that handles its subject very well and
interesting.
8/10
Watch trailer
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