Central do Brasil (Central Station)

report broken trailer
< Previous Trailer  |   Add to My Scrapbook  |   Next Trailer >
Central do Brasil (Central Station)

94% Liked It
liked it

Central do Brasil (Central Sta...

Fernanda Montenegro, Marilia Pera, Sonia Lira, Vinícius de Oliveira

Dora is a former school teacher who makes a living by writing letters for illiterate people passing through Rio de Janeiro's main train station, Central Station. Among her clients are Ana and her nine...( read more  read more... )-year-old son Josue, who has a fierce desire to meet his father, whom he has never seen. Dora has become stoically indifferent to her charge, choosing arbitrarily to send some letters and discard others with the help of her neighbor Irene. A sudden accident leaves Josue orphaned at the station and this is when Dora's life begins to change dramatically. Swayed by a curiously maternal compassion, Dora commits to returning Josue to his father in Brazil's remote Northeast.

Id: 10225573

Do you want to see this movie?

My Friends Said...

Central do Brasil (Central Station) Recent Reviews

Register or sign-in to see your friends' reviews !

Recent Reviews

Central do Brasil (Central Station) Recent Reviews
  • SirPant
    September 30, 2009
    SirPant
    Beautiful film about a young boy looking for his father and the woman who helps him. Brilliantly acted by Fernanda Montenegro & Vinìcius de Oliveira and beautifully shot by Salles. I cried a little bit at the end!
  • flixsterman
    June 22, 2009
    flixsterman
    I don't remember who recommended this movie to me but, whoever you are, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. :)
  • EarthlyAlien
    March 8, 2009
    EarthlyAlien
    Dora: "I forget my father's face, too. Damn photos shouldn't be there to remind us. We should be able to forget. I left home at sixteen, and never saw my father again. Except for once... years later. I saw him in the street. I froze, then found the courage to go up to him. "Re...( read more)member me?" I said. "Do you recognize me?" I could see he hadn't recognized me. He didn't recognize... his own daughter. He said: "How could I have forgotten such a lovely girl like you?" I told the rat I'd made a mistake and left. I heard he died soon afterwards. You understand?
    Josué: What did I do?
    Dora: You'll soon forget me, too.
    Josué: I don't want to forget you.
    Dora: Even so... you will."

    Photobucket

    When first we meet Dora (Fernanda Montenegro), the lead character of Walter Salles' Central Station, her hard shell of cynicism does not seem inappropriate. We may not sympathize with Dora's coping strategies and human responses, but given the abrasiveness of her environment, her detachment seems a reasonable defence. We're introduced to this retired single woman as she plies her trade: writing letters from a makeshift stall in the train station for the illiterate of Rio de Janeiro who want her to wave her pen like a magic wand and make their long-lost loved ones reappear and cause all their groundless dreams to come true.

    They dictate letters to saints, runaway spouses, and family members who long ago scattered to the country's massive interior. For additional money Dora promises to mail the letters but instead she takes them home and reads them for amusement with her friend Irene (Marília Pêra, who played the prostitute in Hector Babenco's Pixote) before throwing them in an empty drawer or destroying them. One day after a woman and her son dictate a letter to the boy's missing father, the woman steps into the street and is killed by a bus. Seemingly, the young boy Josué (Vinícius de Oliveira) has no one else in Rio to turn to for help, so he approaches Dora. She shoos him away but he sticks to her like any good film orphan would.

    And we think at this point that we know where the film is going - we're sure it will be a heartwarming story about how the needy urchin wears down the older woman's defences and teaches her the transcendent value of human contact. And to a certain degree it is, but things are not nearly that simple in Central Station. The film is much more subtle about its journey, and the path it takes deviates from the well-travelled road. In fact, the central action of the film occurs in the form of a road movie. The story is much less about its resolution than the experience along the way.

    At its best, Central Station is a film of small textures and fleeting moments, the intangibles that pass between people. So much of the film's success is due to the stirring performance of Fernanda Montenegro, nominated for a Best Actress Oscar in 1999. Hailed by many as Brazil's finest actress, most of Montenegro's work has been on the stage, so one could easily assume this screen performance in such a widely seen work would bump her international stock in trade. But the funny thing is, it didn't. She remained loyal to her craft, loyal to the theatre, and was only in about half a dozen films in the last decade, most notably Andrucha Waddington's House of Sand.

    It's understandable why she's so frequently compared to Guilietta Massina, the star and muse of so many unforgettable Fellini films: There's a physical resemblance that emphasizes each character's inner dilemmas and native physicality and forgoes the thin sheen of Max-Factored beauty. Vincius de Oliveira, the 13-year-old kid discovered by Salles while working as a shoe shine boy, is stunning as Josué and his chemistry with Montenegro is achingly poignant. Salles, who comes from a documentarian background, does a superlative job of bringing the realism of the streets and the countryside to this narrative fiction. Central Station is a film that shares the weight of reality with the fragility of the intangible. Despite its ultimate narrative predictability, the combination is ultimately sublime, as is the film.
  • DrBenway
    January 12, 2009
    DrBenway
    The film is darker than standard road trip fare. Dora (Fernanda Montenegro) is a mean, cynical and condescending individual. She writes letters for illiterate people full of hope and dreams while she frequently mocks and discards letters soon after writing. She revels in the misf...( read more)ortune of others and has no time for the young boy orphaned in front of her. Dora is so unlikable even director Walter Salles' camera doesn't want to get too close. This makes his use of close-ups of Montenegro more noticeable.

    The story is small yet strong in that the two main characters are insignificant in the hustle and bustle of the world and no one would notice if they fell off the face of the earth. The hustle of Central Station contrasts with scenes of the wide-open Brazilian countryside, dusty and beautiful. The ending is a wonderful scene that puts a lump in my throat. Watch this scene, and then ask yourself what the Academy was thinking when they gave her Oscar to Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare In Love.
    Photobucket
  • clooneyfan
    July 3, 2008
    clooneyfan
    Interesting foreign film about an unscrupulous woman who decides to help a boy find his father after she witnesses his mother being killed. The living conditions in Brazil are so totally different than what we experience here in the US!
  • TioBradski
    December 5, 2009
    TioBradski
    It kicks off with a plot contrivance that would have seemed overly convenient in a Douglas Sirk melodrama. But I'll be a tio de um macaco if this film doesn't work its Brazilian magic and bring a tear to my cynical gringo eye.
  • angelitus90
    September 24, 2009
    angelitus90
    life is hard... but why for children too?
  • SageSlowdive
    August 26, 2009
    SageSlowdive
    Montenegro deserved the Oscar.
  • rodrigocesardasilva
    August 20, 2009
    rodrigocesardasilva
    o filme mais bem escrito, dirigido e atuado, do cinema nacional. central do brasil foi o primeiro grande filme do cinema novo.
  • addienairzan
    August 19, 2009
    addienairzan
    MARVELOUS. I just love everything in it.
View All Reviews

Opening This Week

Top Box Office

Upcoming Movies

New on DVD