Central Station (Central do Brasil) (1998)
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94% of critics liked it
(48 reviews) -
93% of users liked it
(13,018 ratings)
Former documentary filmmaker Walter Salles (Foreign Land) directed this Brazilian-French road movie tracing the travels and travails of a young boy and an aging woman across the Brazilian landscape. In Rio de Janeiro's central railroad station, callous Dora (leading Brazilian stage/screen… More Former documentary filmmaker Walter Salles (Foreign Land) directed this Brazilian-French road movie tracing the travels and travails of a young boy and an aging woman across the Brazilian landscape. In Rio de Janeiro's central railroad station, callous Dora (leading Brazilian stage/screen actress Fernanda Montenegro) works at a stand where she writes letters for a parade of poor and illiterate. Some of these remain undelivered because she chooses not to mail all of the letters. One of her customers is a woman whose nine-year-old son, Josue (Vinicius de Oliveira), hopes to see the father he has never met, but after the mother dictates two letters to the father, she's killed when hit by a bus. Since Josue is left homeless, Dora reluctantly takes him home to her small apartment overlooking the railroad tracks, where she sometimes spends time with her neighbor Irene (Marilia Pera). Dora places Josue with people who claim to find adoptive parents. When Irene informs her they actually sell children who are then killed for their organs, Dora rescues Josue, and the two board a bus. After a failed attempt to abandon Josue at a roadside stop, Dora and Josue hitch a ride from a religious truck driver. Failing to locate his father, they arrive penniless at a huge rural religious convocation, where Josue suggests Dora bring her letter-writing skills back into play. The notion works, and Dora profits by writing letters to saints for the more devout among the assembled multitudes. Continuing on, they arrive at a sprawling-mass housing development -- and hopefully, a solution to the problem of a family for Josue. Young actor de Oliveira was a shoeshine boy who beat out more than 1,500 other children who auditioned or were interviewed for the Josue role. Made with grants from the Sundance Institute, NHK, and the French Ministry of Culture, this film was shown at 1998 film festivals (Sundance, Berlin). ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi
- Written By
- Joao Emanuel Carneiro, Marcus Bernstein
- Genres
- Art House & International, Drama
- In Theaters
- Nov 20, 1998 Wide
- Studio
- Sony Classics
Critic Reviews
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Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
As beautiful as it is wrenching.
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Paul Tatara, CNN.com
It'll probably work better if you're not terribly familiar with the movies that inspired it.
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Joe Baltake, Sacramento Bee
Salles provides a textbook example of how to toy with our emotions, how to involve and move us, without necessarily condescending to us or insulting us.
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Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
The movie's success rests largely on the shoulders of Fernanda Montenegro, an actress who successfully defeats any temptation to allow sentimentality to wreck her relationship with the child.
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Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com
What separates and elevates Walter Salles' film above the familiar neo-realist type of melodrama is the stylized visual style and Fernanda Montengero's stunning performance.
See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)
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Cast
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Fernanda Montenegro
as Dora
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Marilia Pera
as Irene
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Vinícius de Oliveira
as Josue
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Soia Lira
as Ana
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Othon Bastos
as Cesar
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Otávio Augusto
as Pedrao
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Stela Freitas
as Yolanda
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Matheus Nachtergaele
as Isaias
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Caio Junqueira
as Moises
- Antonella Rendina
