Killer Ratings follows a Brazilian TV show host accused of ordering assassinations to feature on his program. But was it all a conspiracy, or is he guilty of much worse? Rebecca Lavoie and Kevin Flynn (hosts of Crime Writers On...) speak with director Daniel Bogado about this seven-part series.
Killer Ratings follows a Brazilian TV show host accused of ordering assassinations to feature on his program. But was it all a conspiracy, or is he guilty of much worse? Rebecca Lavoie and Kevin Flynn (hosts of Crime Writers On...) speak with director Daniel Bogado about this seven-part series.
Rae Votta: Welcome to You Can't Make This Up, a companion podcast from Netflix.
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Rae Votta: I'm Rae Votta and I'm hosting this week's episode. Here on You Can't Make This Up we have special guests go behind the scenes of true crime stories that you can watch on Netflix. This month, we're going international with Killer Ratings. This Brazilian documentary follows Wallace Souza, a TV show host turned politician. Wallace hosted the popular crime show, Canal Livre, that is, until he was accused of ordering the murders that he featured on his show. This documentary takes many unexpected twists and turns so we brought in fan favorites Rebecca Lavoie and Kevin Flynn of the podcast Crime Writers On.... They'll be talking to director Daniel Bogado and together, they'll answer the question, "Is there only one truth?"
[Music]
Rebecca: So hello, Daniel. It's wonderful to talk to you about Killer Ratings. We really enjoy the series.
Daniel: Great. Hello. Thanks very much for having me.
Rebecca: There are so many twists and turns in the narrative of this story. You have this guy who was formerly a cop—which is very interesting to me that he originally came from law enforcement—you have this huge city which is extremely remote, and you have this former cop who's now a politician and a TV host. But then there are all these times where you kind of think that the cops have him dead to rights, that he's part of the conspiracy, and then he isn't, and then there's a new witness. I'm wondering, just to sort of simplify it for listeners of this podcast who may have watched the series a while ago or only partway through it, can you just give, briefly, just a timeline of the case and how the events played out?
Daniel: The show itself started in kind of the late 1990's. 1998 more or less. I mean, there were a few previous permutations, but the proper show as we know it started around 1998. And it was very successful for about nine years. You know, it was a massive sensation. And he was huge. I mean, he basically was the most famous person in the Amazon. Not just the most famous person, but the most respected person because he had the TV show, but he also was a politician. And he had a reputation of just being this amazing guy, a wonderful, kind, giving, generous guy. Everybody loved him. And then in 2008 is when everything changes because a man is arrested, gunman called Moa. And he claims that he worked for Wallace Souza, for the TV presenter, and that actually, Wallace Souza is not this kind of saint as he presented himself, but actually, he's the head of a criminal organization and he had actually been behind all the murders and all the violence in the city. And often, he was killing people just to show them on his TV show. So this is what Moa said.
So basically, the police are completely shocked to hear this news and an investigation begins. And the investigation kind of becomes public a few months later. At that time, I think Wallace was still thinking he could contain this. It still looked like a manageable, you know, Amazonian politics things. The element of it being killing for ratings, it still wasn't so much at the fore, it was still a detail. Actually, the biggest fact at the beginning was a politician involved with organized crime.
But then a few months later as the story becomes a bit bigger and bigger and there are more twists and turns, and there's this show called Fantastica, which is a very big show in Brazil, and they kind of make a 10-minute segment on it. And it becomes quite big. It becomes a big story now. Not only in the Amazon, but in all of Brazil. And then about a week later, the foreign press hears about it. And so then everybody—And then finally, you know, this guy in the Amazon is news all around the world. For him, it was, you know, quite traumatic. All of that, according to his family members.
And so the case continues for several months. And it kind of finishes with his death in 2010. It was a huge, huge deal in the Amazon. People in the rest of Brazil are not as familiar with the story. But people in Manaus, you know, he was like their OJ Simpson case. It was the equivalent of that.
Kevin: Can you start by telling us where you got the story? Where'd you hear it?
Daniel: Well, I heard about the story of Wallace Souza from the same time that everybody else did. I mean, if you've seen the series, around episode five it's revealed that it suddenly became this kind of global story for about a day. Some of those joke stories, you know. "God, he was killing people for his TV show."
[Clip plays]
Daniel: It just immediately caught my attention. And you know, this was about 10 years ago. I was already making documentaries, but I wasn't probably as established in the documentary scene as I am now. And also, I just wrote on the idea, you know, killer host. But I thought somebody else is going to make it. Like, that's usually what happens when you see on TV [laughter] some great idea [laughs]. You know, the next year, some powerful player in the industry also saw it and, you know, they're out with their family in Cannes or Sundance or something like that. But you know, the year passed and nobody had made it. And then two years and three years. You know, it still was on, like, a list of ideas I kept with me at all times. And it was still number one.
And so it was like that for several years. But it actually wasn't until January 2017 when I worked with this head of a production company called Eamonn Matthews. We worked together on a series called Unreported World for many years. And I told him the story. And he's telling me, "That's the most extraordinary story I've heard in my life." [Laughter] And this is a guy, you know, he's got, like, multiple BAFTA's and Emmy's. And you know, he's a very large reputation in the industry. And the next thing he said, "Let's do it," you know, which was great.
And so I went on a research trip in Manaus in January 2017. One of the fears you always have about these type of stories is that it actually is not true. You kind of make a few phone calls or you head there and actually something got lost in translation and it's nowhere near as interesting as it sounds. And with this story, not only was it true, but what I did is I went to the kind of local newspaper and I said, "Could you give me every article that was written on the subject of Castle Wallace," as they call it. And it was like, you know, two years' worth of articles. And I took it back to my hotel and I started reading everything.
And that's when I realized, "Oh, my God, this is much, much bigger than even the initial premise would suggest." I mean, you know, it would bring about an explosion of, you know, murder attempts. It's all kind of very casually written in the way like daily articles kind of give you information. But I could see this could be much, much bigger than what I initially thought. And I think that was the seed of what eventually became the seven-part series, Killer Ratings.
Rebecca: And I think we should point out, you know, just for listeners who might not understand kind of the geography of Brazil, the Amazon is the largest state by geography. If it were its own country, it would be the 16th largest country in the world. I went on a whole, like, rabbit hole looking into [laughter] this place after I watched this because I was so fascinated by the politics. Because, you know, in the US, a state politician, which is essentially what Wallace was, wouldn’t be, like, a central figure, you know, on a large stage. But in this case, he was because this is such a large place and because Manaus, the city, you know, is a city of two million people.
But I know, Kevin, the other thing that we talked about a lot watching this was sort of the nature of the TV show itself.
Kevin: The TV show. It's Canal Livre? Did I say that right? What does that translate to in English?
Daniel: It translates to "Free Channel". And actually, it's a relatively common name for kind of a midday show. There's other Canal Livre's in other parts of Brazil...
Rebecca: Got it.
Daniel: …right? And actually, I asked the family, "What does it mean? Why do you call it that?" Nobody really could give me a proper answer. It just means "free," you know, on channels. Like, they're freely showing stuff…
Rebecca: Yeah, they sure are.
Daniel: …around this time of the day.
Kevin: Got you. Well, look, we don't have anything like this TV show in the US. By our standards, it's completely crazy because not only is it just the day's crime news, you've got dancing, you've got a puppet, you've got a guy in a wrestling mask, there's a guy selling pies. There's a live audience [laughter]. Is this is a pretty common format for television in South America, all these different elements?
Daniel: Well, I'm not Brazilian, but I come from Paraguay. In Paraguay, you know, we did have a midday show which, you know, was nowhere near, like, Canal Livre. But it was a guy on a studio, you know, giving out gifts, doing a bit of charity, doing little concerts. There were dancers, entertainment, and all of that. There wasn't the crime element show.
In Brazil, it's a bit different. In Brazil there are these kind of shows in different cities. But I think none were really as extreme as Canal Livre. And I think Canal Livre was extreme because, you know, the Amazon, you can't reach it by road. The only way you can reach it is by plane or by boat. So it is quite isolated. People, in a way, you know, are trapped in there [laughter]. And I think there's a particular psychology about those kind of places. They're a bit unique. And the Amazon is Brazilian, but it's also apart from Brazil.
But what I think Wallace did is, you know, you talk about all the elements like the puppet and the guy with the mask and the dancers and all of that, actually, those were elements of other shows in other cities in Brazil. And he kind of just took inspiration from them and brought them all into one show. And I think the originality that he brought was that thing that they were always there, first on the scene whenever there was a murder, whenever there was a dead body, and you know, they would show very, very graphic stuff. I don't think in other places in Brazil today you would see this anymore. Even Canal Livre when they came back, you know, after the whole scandal, incredibly, the show came back for four years. And they weren't as extreme.
Kevin: Hm-hmm [affirmative]. Yeah.
Rebecca: Well, that actually brings me to something that I wanted to ask you about because I do think in order to tell this story well, you do have to show what they were showing on the show. I mean, you have to. I think the only way the audience can really understand the kind of extreme nature of the violence being shown on the show—the dead bodies, the crime scenes, there was that one scene where the man was still alive, you know, when they arrived there. He had been shot a bunch of times and he was, you know, kind of writhing on the ground. But you have to make a decision at some point as a director. You know, this film that you made is designed for American audiences and international audiences. How did you decide where to draw the line of what to show in your documentary, but also be able to, you know, give an accurate portrayal of what was being shown on Canal Livre?
Daniel: Yeah. No, that's a really good question. I mean, you're absolutely right, we did need to show some part of it so people could understand. It wasn't just enough explaining it. You know, a documentary's a visual medium. And I think if we hadn't shown it, probably people wouldn’t quite get how extreme this show was. Most of the times we don't go as far as the show went. So you know, the burning body, they showed far more than we showed. The very first body where you see with all those bullets, you know, that just went on and on and on, actually, like…
Kevin: The one in the car.
Daniel: The one in the car. The guy actually pulls out his ID and starts showing it…
Rebecca: Oh, my God.
Daniel: …and moving the body around. It just kept going on and on and on. The one at the gas station murder which opens episode three, I think that one will go quite far. And I think one of the reasons was that particular incident was just absolutely key because one of the stories that kept coming up was the story about did you know at one point there was this guy who was in a gas station murder, they had just showed him, and the camera arrived. When the camera arrived, they filmed him agonizing. Like, how could they have done that? And they showed it in the middle of the day. You know, when we began the project, we didn't have anything. We didn't have any archives, any of the TV show. I mean, we had to start from scratch. And I just said, "We need to find that show," because that show for everybody became emblematic about what Wallace was doing. For everybody, that particular clip revealed, you know, that Wallace, the only way he could have got in there that fast was by having ordered the murder.
Kevin: So can you tell us, because you had been doing this research, what your impression was the first time you saw footage from the original show.
Daniel: The original show is—I mean, I have to say it—it's very entertaining [laughter]. It's very watchable. There's a reason why it was number one in the ratings. There's a reason why the whole town stopped to watch it. Because you start watching, and, you know, dead bodies are an element of the show. There wasn't a dead body on every single episode. And the show, you know, Wallace is extremely charismatic. He's very funny. He engages with the audience. There's the dancing. There's a lot of humor, as well, on the show. It's a very, very funny show. I mean, Wallace in a way, you know, he was very, very good at television. He knew what he was doing.
And as far as the dead bodies, you know, the argument that he was making—and I'm somewhat sympathetic to this argument—is that he said that he came from poverty and that the poor people in Manaus, the people who lived in the east zone, they're completely forgotten by the politicians, by, you know, middle class people, by the rest of society. So anything happens there and there's no consequences because nobody cares about those people. And so he says he was trying to show the daily reality, you know, by showing the dead bodies. You know, I think he said in the first episode, "We are not going to hide here what is actually happening to our people."
Even in the interviews that Wallace [unintelligible 00:13:56]—because we were very lucky to find material of a crew that spent time with Wallace during the scandal which you can see in the documentary series—he actually is quite reflective. And he talks about, "Well, maybe I have made some mistakes. Well, maybe I did things, you know, to too much of an extreme." So he makes that argument, as well. And I think, you know, if he was making a show now, he probably would have toned it down a bit.
Kevin: Yeah. This is where I'd like to start is at the beginning of episode one. It's 2009 and we see Representative Wallace Souza. He's got a beard. He looks a lot skinnier than he had in some of the other footage. And he's giving an interview. Tell us about what that interview originally was. Was this part of a PR stunt to rehabilitate his image or was this just a regular news feature? It seems to be a very important part of your documentary.
Daniel: Yeah. I mean, I think we were quite lucky. Now, the way I found that was I was just obsessed with anything I can find about the case. And I was browsing YouTube. And I just put "Wallace Souza", and I would just go through every clip. And suddenly, I found a clip which was actually—you know that clip in the first episode where there's a woman kind of saying, "The killer of my son is over there [unintelligible 00:15:11]"?
Kevin: Oh, in the—Yes, in the audience. Yes.
Daniel: Yeah. And it was that clip, but it was dubbed in French [laughter]. And so I merely recognized the show. I said, "That's Canal Livre." But then I immediately thought, "Well, I think what that means is that somebody got material of the show that I've never seen before and they must have done something and it must have been in France," because this is in French. And so I started researching if anybody had done something with Wallace Souza in France. And it turns out that yes.
Basically, after he became big news internationally, a French crew went to Manaus and convinced Wallace to allow him to spend about a week with him. And also, the other side, the police, as well. And so the guy kind of filmed several hours—and you can see we tried to use quite a lot of it throughout the documentary—and then went back to France. But as often is the case, he just made a kind of 15-minute news feature for their local program. And so just used the best bits. But he actually kept all the original material.
So I contacted him and explained we're making a documentary and would he be interested in kind of, you know, licensing the archive. And he was. And so then, he was fantastic because we had hours and hours and hours of Wallace Souza in the middle of the scandal kind of, you know, explaining himself, justifying himself, saying how ridiculous the accusations were about it. And so you got a real feeling of being with him as the events unfolded. And so we were very fortunate being able to track that down.
Rebecca: But you also have an extraordinary amount of access to other characters in the story that you obtained. I mean, I think about all of the characters in this that I felt like I kind of got to know over the seven episodes. And you know, there's the—I consider him—I'm sorry, I've given them nicknames over time. Like, there's the Very Handsome Detective who's the one who, like [laughter], does the raid of the house.
Kevin: You would think of it that way.
Daniel: He would like to hear that you say that.
Rebecca: Yes. There's the head of the intelligence arm who is—you know, you have this great footage of him doing target practice even as he's telling you that he didn't torture anybody, then it sort of cuts to him, like [laughter], shooting targets. It's very, very good. You have the investigative TV journalist, you have the producer, Vanessa, you have Wallace's sister, both of his sons, or two of his sons, Raphael and is it Willace is how his other son's name is pronounced? Spelled just like Wallace, but with an I?
Daniel: Yeah, Willace. That's intentional.
Rebecca: Yes, I can imagine. How did you get all these access to these people and get them to tell your story on every side of it?
Daniel: I first called up, I think back in 2014, so three years before anything, and I tracked down this journalist who is a journalist who had covered the whole story. And I just wanted to have a conversation with her. I track her down at last and I say to her, "I'm interested in making a documentary about the Wallace case." And she said, "The Wallace case?" And I said, "Yes." I said, "But why?" "I just think it's a very interesting story." I said, "Well, no, no, I don't want to talk about it." And I said, "But why?" "It's too dangerous. It's way too dangerous." And this was five years after the case had, you know, presumably been…
Kevin: Really. Okay.
Daniel: Still now, she said, 'Yes." I said to her, "Listen, it doesn't mean you need to give an interview. We could speak off the record." And she said, "No, no, I'm not interested. Bye." And she hung up [laughs].
Kevin: That radioactive, huh?
Daniel: Yeah. And when I went there, it was the same. People were still very, very, very scared of talking because it was a case as it was reported at the time, you know, there were witnesses being killed all the time. A lot of people died. The police estimated that 17 people died in total. And people kept dying years afterwards. And so it was this kind of thing that whichever way you saw it, whether you thought it was this big conspiracy, then you thought that all the people who were dying were people who were being kept quiet. And if you didn't think it was a conspiracy, if you thought there really was a criminal organization, then you thought, "Well, all these people dying are being killed by the criminal organization." And so there was a huge, huge level of fear.
And one of the things that happened, I went in January 2017 and I did the research, I spoke to people. And then I was going to create a trailer. You know, just filmed a few interviews and put together the material to convince, you know, Netflix to give us the money to do a large series. And what happened was it was, I think, in January or February and so Carnival was in the middle of our research period. And so the local producer said, "Oh, you won’t get anything done in Carnival. So Google the interviews. Take the week off for Carnival," which I did, "and then [laughter] come back." [Laughs] I went to Rio. But "Come back and we'll film the interviews." And so I booked about seven interviews.
And then by the time I came back—it was one week later—like, half of them had canceled. And what happened is they went back home and they spoke to their wife or they spoke to their husband, and they're, like, "You're doing what? You're giving an interview about the Wallace case? Oh, no. You have to cancel. You have to cancel. This could create big problems for us." And that was something that just became kind of a big problem for us throughout the whole shoot. People just being very, very, very afraid, even of the idea of talking to a crew.
And so, you know, we got the commission from Netflix. We prepared for about two months, doing the research, getting the archive, getting all this stuff. And then we were about to go off for I think of six weeks for the initial period of shooting. But we decided not to book a single interview before we left because we thought, you know, the experience I've had, if you book an interview two weeks in advance, two weeks later they have changed their mind.
Rebecca: Right.
Kevin: Yeah.
Daniel: And so you need to kind of convince them and either do it on the same day or do it the day after. And the other things is, you couldn't just go to their house to film because nobody wanted to be filmed, nobody wanted to see a crew come to their house to do something about the Wallace case. So we had to kind of be very secretive. And so what we would do is we'd hire somebody else's house as a scenery and then we kind of set it up, set up the cameras. You know, we had a DOP, a sound man and the whole thing. And then the person wouldn't show up [laughs].
Rebecca: Hmm.
Kevin: Ah.
Daniel: And that happened several times. And they switch their phone off, you know. I do think it helped that, you know, we were seen as outsiders. And I would explain to everybody, you know, "We don't know how big this will be. It could be quite big. Brazil hasn't had a true crime series before, but we're kind of doing something very, very detailed. We're going to do seven episodes. We're going to go into extraordinary detail about what really happened in the case. And we're not showing one side; we're showing both sides." And so what we would say is, like, "You know, a lot of people are talking on this side, but not so many from the other side. So you know, we need collaboration from both sides. And we are giving you a platform, an opportunity for you to tell your story, perhaps for the first time. And we're going to be as fair, as un-impartial [SIC] as possible. But if you don't speak, then actually, the majority of the voices will be heard from the other side. And then, you know, if this becomes quite big, then you'll come and call me and you'll say, 'Well, you were quite unfair,' and I'll say, 'Well, you know, we gave you the opportunity.'"
And it is quite funny because the day it went out, I watched the whole series from beginning to end just in case it was something wrong that we had missed. Just to make sure everything was fine. And what’s—All these characters, they're like little, you know, they're icons with their face and their name and they're, like, texting me [laughter] what they're thinking about it [laughs]. And the vast majority of them were actually quite happy with it from both sides.
Rebecca: You did give everybody a lot of time, which I really appreciated. As somebody that comes from the journalism side, you know, I don't think anybody can fairly say that you didn't give them enough time because everyone did have time. One of the things I kept wondering, though, is do you speak Portuguese or did you have to have a translator ask all these questions and then do translation back? Because this is all subtitled; there is no narration. And I just wondered about sort of the mechanics of that.
Daniel: So I was raised in Paraguay, but I actually was raised in the city which is a border town with Brazil. And so I had a lot of contacts, daily contact with Brazilians. And I picked up quite a lot of Portuguese. As I, you know, researched more and more and was reading and listening to Portuguese all the time, my Portuguese got better and better and better to the point, you know, that they felt I actually did Portuguese quite good as I would conduct the interviews.
And there was a very large number of Brazilians. It was kind of an international corporation. We have people in London, execs and producers and things like that. But Suemay Oran, she's Brazilian, she was a producer and director, she worked on two episodes and throughout the series. We had an editor that was Brazilian. We had lots of people on the ground—you know, researchers, investigators, journalists, assistants—all Brazilian. And so I think about 80 percent of us were Brazilian and 20 percent were English speakers. And so for most of the interviews, there was no need for translators.
Kevin: One of the people that you did get an interview with was Raphael, Wallace's son and his accused accomplice. Why do you think he agreed to sit down and do an interview with you?
Daniel: Well, actually, we didn't get Raphael. Raphael was interviewed about three years after the case by another production company.
Kevin: Got you. Well, why do you think he gave that interview, then?
Daniel: Well, Raphael at the time was in prison. And I think he probably thought that he might help his case. When I met him, he was out of prison. And the reason he didn't give us an interview now was because, actually, he's got two more cases. So he's out for the murder of Casula [phonetic 00:24:27], but he's wanted for two other murders. I believe the murder of Fabiano [phonetic 00:24:31] on episode four and Luiz Pulga. So he still has some cases coming up.
And you know, I met him. We had a long discussion. I tried to convince him to participate. But a large number of the members of the Souza family were very, very dead set against this project. And Willace actually was challenging the family thinking, "No, actually, you know, this could help us. This could be a good way for us to tell our side of the story." And he told me, "You know, I'm like my father. I'm, like, independent minded. They don't want me to do it, but I want to do it. So I'm going to do it." And then when we were doing an interview, he brought his Aunt Merluz [phonetic 00:25:09] and she saw the way we were asking questions and the way we were kind of going into quite detail and the way we were not kind of trying to push one narrative, but actually quite interested to hear their perspective. And after seeing that, she said, "Well, I want to give an interview, as well."
Rebecca: Well, I think that was really a smart thing to do because, you know, getting that family perspective, you sort of understand that, you know, if everything is true—And there are still people who love this man, right? And so it's an interesting sort of look at, you know, potential motivations on their side.
The other thing that I wanted to ask you about, though, are the politics in this region. You know, we see all of these scenes in the state, basically, the Assembly of the state with Wallace, you know, making these speeches and his fellow assemblymen initially being, like, "Yes [laughter], we support you, no matter what." And then, there's that insane scene during his impeachment proceedings where he goes in on a stretcher to give his testimony. Very dramatic. But then we also hear about nearby city officials who are, like, running a pedophile ring. There's just a lot going on. Not just with, you know, the way the politics works, but with the actual people who hold these roles in this part of the world. Can you talk about that?
Daniel: I mean, I think politics in Brazil in general tends to be quite extreme. And you get these kind of larger than life characters and these kind of larger than life plots. One of the things that people who watch the series, but perhaps were not familiar with the Wallace Souza story, I think one of the reasons this story actually is really resonating a lot in Brazil right now is because they see a lot of echoes and a lot of similarities with other scandals and other stories. You know, even, you know, the current President or what happened to the previous President or the one before that, they all had their own scandals.
But then, you know, with the Amazon, this place is kind of apart from Brazil, a bit isolated. It's kind of, you know, peak Brazil. It's kind of like Brazil extreme. And so you get these kind of politics and these kind of politicians. And the kind of things that happen there I do think are even more extreme than what happens in the rest of the country.
And so for instance, this politician inquiry who, you know, uses the resources from oil to run these kind of large pedophile ring, I mean, you couldn't make this guy up. Like, if I wrote this guy in a novel, you'd think that's just way over the top as a villain, you know [laughs]. It's just ludicrous. And Wallace was genuinely kind of challenging this guy. And then within the Assembly, as well, with all these characters. You know, we kept hearing that in the Amazon, you know, politics is quite extreme and there's this essentially one group of people—This is what people kept saying and I think somebody says it in the documentary, in episode five, there's just really one group of people that have been controlling the Amazon for the last 40 years. And they kind of change places. You know, "It's your turn to be governor now. It's your turn to be mayor of Manaus now." Like, the same group of people exerting the same control.
And so if somebody challenges that, it's not enough to kind of just see them off; they have to destroy them. And they say Wallace was not the first person that was destroyed in this way. And if he had won, if he had become governor or secretary [unintelligible 00:28:17], according to the family, according to their side, then he would have all the power of the state. And what do you do when you have all the power of the state? You investigate your enemies, right? So this governor could have been looking at prison time.
And the interesting thing about Wallace is that, you know, it was very strange going from one side to the other. Because often we would interview one side, and then in the afternoon we would have a conversation with the other side. And both sides are very, very convincing. And the reason they're very convincing is because what they say is like the story that the other side is trying to sell you is absurd. So one side…
Kevin: Fake news.
Daniel: Yeah, exactly. It's fake news. So one side is trying to tell you that this guy, who is the most famous guy in Manaus, who has this great show, who everybody who knows him says he's fantastic, kind, generous—you know, he's like Gandhi—they're trying to convince you that this guy is killing people to show them on his TV show, even though he already has the number one TV show, even though already there's deaths every day in this city, like, why would he do that? This story makes no sense, right?" And you think, "Yeah, actually, it is quite strange."
And then the other side says, "Wait. So what they're trying to say is this one guy was persecuted by the civil police, by all the prosecutors, by the civil judges, by the federal police, by the federal prosecutors; all the machinery of all the Brazilian apparatus got together to get this one guy." And that's also difficult to believe because, you know, there might be corruption in South America, but you would never believe that a hundred percent of everybody across every single state agency is corrupt. And so both stories, when you hear them, sound absurd. But one of them has to be true [laughs]. So that's kind of the dilemma that's presented by the series.
And one of the things I do not think, certainly knowing David Nielsen [phonetic 00:30:09], David Nielsen was this absolute boy scout. I mean, I would say, too, because when the cameras would go off, he would just kind of become a bit more alive. And I would go, "Oh, Danny, that's crazy." And I said, "Why don't you speak to me like that when we are doing the interview? Because actually, it's more interesting if you just sound more like a human being." And he would say, "Well, no, because I'm representing the police and I have to be very careful about every single word I use." And so that's actually why he's quite posed when kind of you can see. And he was like that with everything. Everything had to be, you know, by the book. Everything had to be right. If I kind of wrote an article perhaps saying, well, can we explain this, he wanted to be a hundred percent accurate, right? And so it's very difficult to believe that a man like that would decide to kind of say no to the law and be part of some conspiracy to bring down some guy. It's really, really difficult to believe that.
Rebecca: I will tell you I was very glad to hear you describe the handsome cop as being a good guy who was very earnest because that's how he comes across. In addition to being handsome. I was very happy to hear that you also think he's a good guy [laughs].
Daniel: I do think. I was quite concerned for Tomas in a sense that, you know, you work with people, right, and convince them to participate in the series. I mean, Tomas and the allegations of torture were already part of the record. It took a lot of time to convince him. You take the opportunity to kind of respond to these allegations or you don't. But then, it turns out there were more than one, right? You know, there's several. And Tomas, unlike David Nielsen, you know, he's a particular type of personality. You know, he comes across a bit as a villain of the piece because he's quite quiet and very serious and kind of very direct, you know. He's got a way of being.
Rebecca: And he has a beard, which many villains do [laughter].
Daniel: And yet, you know, when you're doing a documentary, you're actually trying to establish bridges and empathy and connection with every single one of your contributors, right? And you don’t ever want to make a documentary that's going to create a lot of problems or make their life very difficult. And so we were all quite concerned with Tomas because he just gets accused several, several times. We always give him a [unintelligible 00:32:15] reply.
Rebecca: Right.
Daniel: And then he texted me afterwards and I said, "Have you watched it?" "Yes." "And what do you think?" "Yeah, good job." [Laughs]
Rebecca: So you mention that this is being viewed quite a lot in Brazil. What has the reception there been like?
Daniel: Well, it's been really, really great. I mean, we've been very excited at the reception in Brazil. And when we started the series, Netflix told us this is the first original documentary series they commissioned in a foreign language. They've never done this before. But they loved the story so much. And when it went out, first of all, in Manaus, in the Amazon, it was just huge. I mean, everybody kept texting me. Nobody's talking about anything else except the series. And they were absolutely thrilled at seeing their streets, some people they knew [laughs], you know, on Netflix, of all things. They just couldn't believe it. And they just loved the story because even if they lived it, they didn't really know all the details about what happened, you know. Everybody was glued that first week.
And then as days went by, we started seeing in other places in Brazil people starting to go, "Well, I've never heard about this story. How could I have never heard about this?" Because it wasn't that big in the rest of Brazil. But they were watching the series now and so many people just absolutely loved it and absolutely loved this kind of singing their own language and their own, you know, people, these kind of true crime story which they also associate more with Making a Murderer, or [unintelligible 00:33:32] or Wild Wild Country, there was just such an enthusiastic reception to it we could see.
And then, you know, about a week later, we could start seeing people around the world, you know [laughs]? Someone in Japan or Korea or in Poland or the UK just going, "Oh, my God, this documentary is insane." And through word of mouth, it started, you know, spreading. And so we saw that people were braving the subtitles and actually getting to the end of it. And that was just so pleasant.
And two days ago the charges came out for the UK. The UK does charge for their Netflix series. And it was the seventh most watched documentary in the UK. It was the only one with subtitles and we're just so thrilled, you know, that people were giving it a go and actually enjoying it.
Kevin: Danny, before we wrap it up, I just have to ask you directly: Do you think that Wallace is a criminal?
Daniel: Very interesting question.
Kevin: It's a simple, straightforward question, my friend [laughter].
Daniel: No, there isn't a yes or no to that. I mean, "criminal" can mean so many things, right? Like, when people say, "Is Wallace guilty?" The question is, "Well, guilty of what? Guilty of killing? Guilty of killing for ratings? You know, guilty of being head of a [unintelligible 00:34:36]? Guilty of breaking the law in some capacity?" You know, in episode seven, we [unintelligible 00:34:42]…
Kevin: I don't hear you answering my question [laughter]. I hear you tap dancing, but I do not hear you answering my question.
Daniel: It's because I don't know. I don't have, like, a black and white answer to that. I have, like, my own theory. I've got my own where my intuition takes me. But what I would say is, you know, when you put together a documentary series and you have seven episodes, we went through mountains and mountains and mountains of evidence. I mean, there were multiple cases, thousands of pages of depositions, video archive. All sorts of stuff. And we went through all of it.
It was never an intention to kind of create a balance at any cost, right? If we had found absolute evidence that he was guilty, we'd have shown it. If we had found absolute evidence that he was innocent, we would have shown it. And we actually, in the series, we show all the evidence. And some people that finish watching the series and say, "Well, you absolutely convinced me he was guilty." And some people finish watching the series and they say, "You absolutely convinced me that he wasn't; that he was innocent." And the series itself, we can only provide the tip of the iceberg because there were hundreds more witnesses, there were hundreds, thousands of pages more of evidence, right?
And I've gone through all of it. And actually, it never gets clear. I mean, everything that you think, "Oh, wait a second, this looks quite interesting. This provides the answer," you could always see it from another angle or you could always see it in a different way. And so what I would say, looking at all the evidence, is that whether Wallace was guilty or not, I think there's kind of a spectrum of possibilities that the evidence supports. And that spectrum of possibilities I don't think includes him being a hundred percent innocent, right? I don't think it includes him being a saint, you know. As most people think, he probably was guilty of a few things. Perhaps nothing as extreme as the task force said. Or all the way to he was guilty of what the task force said. And off the record, I've had conversations with people who told me no, he was guilty of far worse things.
[Music plays] And so there's this kind of spectrum of possibilities. And I think, in a way, everybody has to look at the series, kind of listen to what people are saying, look at the evidence and make their own decision. The only way we'd really know for certain is getting a, you know, time machine and going back and trying to see for ourselves.
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Rae Votta: That was Rebecca Lavoie and Kevin Flynn talking to Daniel Bogado. You can find this show on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify and wherever else you get your podcasts. Make sure to subscribe, rate and review this show. It helps other people find it and it helps us with our own ratings just a little bit. You Can't Make This Up is a production of Pineapple Street Media and Netflix. Our music is by Hansdale Hsu. I'm Rae Votta thank you so much for listening.
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