A rollercoaster of emotions never done or imagined before, this masterful documentary is a lesson in humility, atonement and a
reflection on correcting past mistakes (or trying to do that) when a journalist finds that he needed to address his biggest regret with a
story concerning a false accusation of pedophilia related to a family and their co-workers on a preschool, a case that later was known as
Escola Base, which happened in 1994, and those charged people went through a hell and their lives were never the same. Acclaimed
Valmir Salaro makes a full examination on the story he covered in the 1990's, at the same time he tries to find the participants and survivors
of the case with the intention of healing wounds and hearing a different side of the story.
The Escola Base case made us look back of how damaging and sad a fake news can cause on people (back when the term didn't exist),
and its aftermath effects were suffered mostly in the world of journalism, concerning ethics, fact-checking and investigating things time and again, until an effective publication could be made. The rush of judgment and the weight of being the first to break the story, the responsability that newsman must have, and that's one of the hardest cases covered on journalism courses and Valmir Salaro teaches young students exactly all that went wrong, including his own mistakes with the case and the reports (the Shimada family always blamed his particular coverage).
A whole humiliation done on public square, but the right of response, the wrongs that were corrected by the justice weren't printed in the media in a similar spectacular fashion. That's why Salaro look back to the case is important, as a new investigation with a full scope that even tries to
find the mothers who made the false claims, and the buffoon chief of police who simply avoided searching for facts. Here, a reporter atones
for his past sins, asking for forgiveness - if such a thing could be ever done - but it certainly can be tried, and he does a terrific job at that.
As he looks back at the early TV reports, there are countless of insanely embarassing moments of children (victims) being shown/heard on tape (the blurred images took some time to appear. Times had definitely changed!), the many gaps in the story accusing the families; the inflamatory and wild unsubstianted gossips heavily printed on the media about the "sex car" and satanic rituals, coming on a similar line as the McMartin case (the HBO film was released a year later and it's almost impossible to not compare both cases).
Beyond the sad story and how many people's name were thrown in the mud and the preschool was closed down, as it examines the
encounters of Salaro with the key people involved (mostly their sons since the Japanese couple was already dead), there's also a thrilling,
emotional, and a most perfect detailed view of the Escola Base. It's great cinema and a triumphant lesson of journalism - not that it what's printed and shown changed that much, but the ways that led to some signifcant change started with this case. 10/10.
