User reviews

'Central do Brasil' is basically a road movie about a boy Josué (Vinícius de Oliveira) who just lost his mother searching for his father. He does this with the help of Dora (Fernanda Montenegro). She writes letters for illiterate people in the central station of Rio de Janeiro. Dora has a secret, she doesn't mail the letters. She knows Josué because he and his mother used to write letters to Josué's father and when his mother dies she takes care of him, although she has other intentions at first.

The movie is mainly about the relationship between the boy and the woman. Of course they meet people on the road. Especially the part where they travel with a truck driver is very good. We also see a little of the life in Brazil. This is a movie with a good story that is very well directed. The acting is terrific. Montenegra as the older woman and especially De Oliveira as the boy is very good.

In reality, there are a finite amount of interesting story lines to tell. What makes one movie telling the same storyline more worthwhile to see is a combination of creative expression, in depth character development, superb acting, exquisite photography, and believability, or the ability to persuade the moviegoer to suspend disbelief.

How many times have we been exposed to a retelling of Shirley Temple's Heidi, where a young non-related child falls into the life of an old curmudgeon, and teaches that curmudgeon to enjoy life and/or develop morals and values? Too many times for me, so I was reluctant to see this film. It would have been a shame had I not.

There are many creative twists and turns along the way to keep the suspense level up in this film. The photography in Rio is OK, but once out in the Brazilian countryside, it is fantastic. At the end of the film, there is little doubt but that the way this story turns out is how it would have had to turn out. The character development of Josue is a little weak, but that of Dora is superb. And you will see a lot of films before you will see an acting performance like Fernanda Montenegro's as Dora again.

This movie thankfully is not overly sentimental, that would get in the way of the story, it is just a great film to watch and enjoy. 9 of 10.

Great movie, warm and bittersweet. It somehow reminded me of

My Life as a Dog (1985) because it more or less deals with the

same issues, but we move from the Swedish North to the sunny

Brazilian South. Beautiful colors, great acting--Josue and Dora

make a wonderful pair and they really foil each other out. Almost

starts dragging a little before the end, but it picks up again. I highly

recommend.

This film, which we watched at the Vancouver Film Festival years ago, turned up the other night on cable. On second viewing, the film still packs quite an impact, as it still feels real. The work of Walter Salles and Fernanda Montenegro was amazing then, and still is now.

This is the story about a cynic and jaded woman who resorts to do menial work and who is a small con artist herself. Dora has seen better days. She is retired now, but in order to make ends meet, she sets a letter writing desk at Rio's train station where she writes letters dictated to her by the illiterate and eager people who can't do the job as they want to communicate with distant family and friends through Dona Dora. In many cases, as it's the case with the letter she has written for Ana, she has no intention of ever sending those missives dictated to her by the unsuspecting people.

Josue, the small boy, who witness the death of his mother, is wiser for his younger years than one might suspect. He sees right through Dora as a charlatan and a con woman. When Dora takes the boy home, she has no intentions of ever helping him much more than a few days. Later, upon learning about the adoption agency, she sells the boy to the unscrupulous people involved in the traffic of children for a thousand dollars without any problems. It's only when her friend Irene tells her the fate that Josue will encounter, that Dora leaps into action.

Since she can't stay home without having to return her money, she takes Josue on the road. This odd couple begins the journey as complete strangers, but this voyage will make them appreciate one another and even move Dora into becoming a better woman for having the courage to do the right thing. Josue also realizes that Dora, in her own way, has been, for however short, the mother he lost in the tragic accident.

Fernanda Montenegro, perhaps Brazil's best actress, is amazing as Dona Dora. She is the whole reason for seeing the movie. Her Dora is one of the best creations in her film career. This intense performer shows an actress who fully understand who Dora is and the way she would behave in the situation. Young Vinicius Oliveira is a sweet Josue, and Marilia Pera, is the kind Irene, who makes Dora see the monstrosity of what she was about to do.

The music by Jacques Morelembaum and Antonio Pinto is an asset, as it adds an atmosphere to the long journey of Dora and Josue. The interesting cinematography by Walter Carvalho, shows the immensity of Brazil's interior as the odd couple go to find the little boy's father.

This film is a triumph for both Walter Salles and Fernanda Montenegro.

Central do Brasil has everything. You come expecting a story of a woman who takes care of a child in a harsh social milieu. You sit in disbelief as this woman shows herself to be a heartless opportunist, and as your expectations are being confounded, you begin to realize how this villainess came to be such a person. The boy she begins to help is also no innocent movie cherub, he has an endearing slyness and a will to survive despite the horrible tragedy he has experienced.

Their road trip is an odyssey from bad to worse, and you begin to sympathize. The characters they meet and the landscape they traverse give us in the north a flavor of Brazil which I cannot confirm as being authentic. But they seem as complex and beautiful and full of contradiction as the Brazilian music that I love. And the final destination for the boy (you're on the edge of your seat hoping things will turn out right) is not a happily-ever-after, but seems to indicate a new direction for the character.

If I sound overly sentimental (I'm sure I do) it's because very few films have moved me like this one. I watched it through three times and cried at the scene of Dora on the bus every time. The use of religious imagery, from the modern evangelicalism of the truck driver to the more unfamiliar scenes with the pictures of the saints (incredible camerawork here) added dimensions of complexity in a medium where Christianity is often treated either in a saccharine fashion or with heavyhanded disdain. See Central Station.

A wonderful film, that works on several layers. This is a film about a cynical woman who becomes a "mother" to a young boy who has just lost his mother. Through the course of this film, this woman, Dora, learns to love. The young boy, Josue, learns to live again. Each is so clearly delineated and so clearly defined that the film is a pleasure from beginning to end.

Central Station actually beat "Life is Beautiful" at some of the world's top awards ceremonies for that year, and you can see why. Its acting is superb, and Walter Salles' direction is with a masterly touch. The cinematography, evoking that desaturated, golden world of Brazil is beautiful - it's a lesson in itself on how to make an apparently 'gritty' world very beautiful. Watch this film.

This movie is special.It shows the real Brasil with a simple but beautiful and touching story about a little boy looking for the father he never knew and a woman looking for a second chance. The performers are brilliant! Fernanda Montenegro is extraordinary in the role of Dora.The chemistry between the main characters (Dora and Josué) is splendid. The film photography is wonderful, so as the instrumental soundtrack. Central do Brasil(Central Station) is one of the best movies I have ever seen.

Be ready to weep and be happy!

Can be a little scary when you finish a beloved movie and then have to say you didn't love it like so many others have. Recently, some people seemed personally offended (and I think even angry) that I didn't love Sound of Metal, even though I wouldn't dream of calling it bad, as I could recognise it was well made- it just didn't do it for me personally.

And I find myself with a similar feeling regarding Central Station. It's technically hard to fault, with good performances and particularly good visuals, and a simple story that's told decently.

For some reason, though, I never found myself too invested. If that's on me for expecting too much or anticipating something slightly different, I don't know. It was nice, and like I said, well-made of course, just not something I found emotionally involving.

It could also be a cultural thing- sometimes references or subtext (maybe even text) can be lost when watching a film from a country you're not familiar with, so really, I have very little authority to judge this movie. All I can mention is how I felt after watching it, because that's what I like doing on this app.

And I hope I haven't offended anyone reading this who does love the movie. Really, I'm always a little jealous when I can't see the magic within a film that so many others do, so for those who really love Central Station, I'd say they're the lucky ones.

I was surprised when I first saw Central do Brasil. First, because, living in Brasil, I have had the chance to see the rise and fall of our movie production. Suddenly, a powerful cinematographic milestone comes as a delightful surprise to movie lovers down here. A few things must be said: it's pretty obvious that Central do Brasil is too much of a real and daring movie for the Academy. It's almost a relief that it didn't get any Oscars, but was praised all over the world, winning more than 50 ( !!!) prizes in Europe, Asia and Americas. For those who find it boring, it's time to reavaluate your concepts on what good cinema is. Stop seeing The Patriots and Independence Days that infect America's so-called Industry, and try to research a little bit more on sense and sensibility!!

I'm a Brazilian born French and I learned some things about Brazil seeing this movie. It's interesting but also beautiful and well casted. At first, I thought of a remake of Gloria by John Cassavetes because the main characters are alike in both films. But Walter Salles emphasises on the road and the country, he's full of hopes about his own nation... and Brazil just needs hope. The characters find hope in Jesus: the one we all know and also, Jesus is the name of the orphan kid's father they are looking for.

Plays out like a good mystery novel although it is not. The young man (Vincus de Oliveria) who plays the orphan is very good considering that this is his first film. Fernanda Montenegro is brilliant as the aging, bitter letter writer.

I did not find the film sentimental at all and I highly recommend it. Just watching the two main characters at work is a joy.

I thought this movie was terrific, a little slow in parts, but I cared about the characters and was interested in their journey. I also liked the fact that the main character was not portrayed as a saint - Dora is a real person, flaws and all. Montenegro was robbed at the Oscars and so was the movie.

This film is uncommonly powerful, with very dark tones but bursting with hope and love. The main character, a jaded and bitter letter writer working in Brazil's largest train station (Fernanda Montenegro), is suddenly burdened with a kid who eventually wins her over. But unlike the common feel-good comedies with the same setup, Central do Brasil takes the viewer on a sometimes hopeless, openly vulnerable, and powerfully emotional journey. You can really feel the connection between the boy and his new caretaker – you can feel all of her emotions, really, because her acting is just that spectacular. The acting, the camera work, the soundtrack, and the beautifully written story all come together to produce just an amazing movie, well worth watching, that may just jerk a tear from your eye.

Central Station is a special film for us, brazilians because we can see our real people on the screen. Brazilian people is recognized only for Carnival, beaches or any kind of celebration, but we have problems, and the film shows it: poverty, illiteracy. At the same time, all the world can know our friendship and kindness on the characters. As a brazilian, I see Central Station like a post card of my country not for tourists, but for refined people.

Central Station is a road movie set in Rio where it is a dog eat dog society if you are poor. Dora a retired teacher works in a train station concourse where she writes letters for illiterates and usually does not post them even though she has been paid for this service.

Josue is a young boy who has been orphaned since his mother was hit by a bus. He is a wise kid sensing Dora was scamming her mother who paid her to write letters to his father far away.

Dora reluctantly takes him in but she has no altruistic reasons for this. She sells him to an adoption agency and uses the money to buy herself a new television set. Her friend tells her that the kids are not adopted, their organs are used for transplants.

Maybe it is guilt, she takes him back and they go looking for his father with the little money they have. Dora is still reluctant, along the way she tries to leave him once more but something inside her makes her stick with him.

They get to Josue's father's town but things get more complicated which includes meeting half siblings.

The film is more about Dora, a selfish woman wrapped up in her world, trying to get by whilst making a buck. The journey stirs her own memories with her father. She realises at the end that Josue needs to be with his family and uses her writing skills to good effect this time.

Like Gena Rowlands in this country (who ironically did a similar film, 1996's "Unhook the Stars"), Brazil's Fernanda Montenegro is a masterful actress who inhabits her characters wholly with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of personal depth. In this beautifully filmed 1998 film directed by Walter Salles, she offers a superbly realistic portrayal of an aging, embittered spinster named Dora, who earns money by writing letters for illiterate passers-by at Rio de Janeiro's Central Station. At the outset, she is a petty thief who takes the letters and decides with her friend Irene which ones to post if at all. Her dull world changes when Josué, the nine year-old son of a woman for whom Dora has written a letter, suddenly becomes orphaned when the woman is killed by a speeding bus. The letter was to be sent to Josué's father to reunite the family. Now his plight gradually becomes Dora's concern, and over the course of the film, her destiny.

What Salles does with great dexterity is show the gradual closeness between Dora and Josué without resorting to any obvious sentimental plot devices, as neither is particularly sympathetic at the beginning and use their surly, obstinate personalities as protective shells. Even though this story has an overly familiar structure, Salles and screenwriters João Emanuel Carneiro and Marcos Bernstein bring a heavy dose of neo-realism within the unfamiliar, non-tourist locales used. It's all reminiscent of Vittorio de Sica's and Roberto Rosellini's classic post-WWII work in Italy like "The Bicycle Thief" and "Open City". With his later film, 2004's wonderful "The Motorcycle Diaries" and now slated to film Jack Keroauc's seminal "On the Road", Salles is obviously becoming known as a master of the road movie, and it is easy to see why with this work. Helping considerably is the stunning cinematography of Walter Carvalho, who presents vividly inhabited tableaux with each new phase of the journey from the bustle of inner-city Rio to the open roads to the religious pilgrimage to the new shoebox-style settlement.

But it is Montenegro who dominates the proceedings as she gradually develops a character who earns our sympathy economically and honestly as she makes every moment count. For example, as she senses herself becoming attracted to Cesar, the religious truck driver, she applies a stranger's lipstick with a quivering hesitation that is almost as heartbreaking as the realization she faces moments later that he has left for good. A real shoeshine boy picked by Salles, Vinícius de Oliveira plays Josué with equal economy and responds to Dora's actions with realism that alternates between touching and frustrating. Smaller roles are filled expertly with Marília Pêra amusingly ebullient as Irene and Othon Bastos compellingly conflicted as Cesar. The climax comes a bit out of left field with the introduction of new characters that provide some amount of closure to Josué's fate and wrap up many of the open plot threads, but the somewhat pat turn does not undermine the genuine strength of the film.

The DVD provides a nice extra with Montenegro, Salles, and producer Arthur Cohn contributing invaluable audio commentary in English. Salles and Cohn talk about the sources of inspiration for the movie as well as the more technical aspects including the rigors of location shooting with masses of amateur actors and a minimum of art direction and constructed sets. Montenegro speaks less, but like her performance, makes all her comments resonate. It's interesting how variations of the film's basic plot have come up in recent years - for instance, Jan Sverák's 1996 "Kolya" from the Czech Republic and Takeshi Kitano's 2000 "Kikujiro" from Japan - and this one certainly holds up well as a prototype.

Not that La vita e Bella was lacking, both having a child coactor and being very emotive. But Montenegro plays a deeper and richer character imho.

I'm sure Central do Brazil was not respresentative of 1998 Rio, I did find shocking the random execution of a petty thief for example. Nevertheless the director reveals the social reality in a masterful way, I admire the ending: most rational and sentimental at the same time. Nothing broken I see in these characters regardless the setbacks.

I dislike very much movies "made to be liked". "Central do Brasil", as a portrait of Brazil's reality, in my opinion, fails. And as simple story of a boy and an old woman trying to working things up with life, fails too. It has a weak script, and is poorly developed as a story. The boy is cute, and the old woman is a great actress, but that's all the good in this movie for me.