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	Central Station
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	Brand	Sony
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	Categories	On The Road   France   General   Brazil   All Sony Pictures Titles   Drama   International   Period Piece   ( C )   Movies & TV on DVD and Blu-ray Disc Trade-In   DVD   Widescreen   R   US & CA DVDs: Region 1   1990 - 1999
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Description
Two very unlikely souls, a motherless young boy and a lonely retired school teacher become inextricably linked and shape an uncommon bond as they ventu
In the opening scenes of Central Station, colorful crowds of Brazilians stream into and out of a Rio de Janeiro train, pushing throughout doors and windows. You're immediately pulled into the brutal vitality of a nation in motion, environment the tone for a picturesque road movie this charts Brazil's renaissance in a little boy's search for his father and an old woman's emotional reawakening. When we first meet Dora (Fernanda Montenegro), this frozen-hearted, sour-faced woman is the epitome of immobility: day afterwards day, she sits in the train station selling her letter-writing skills to all comers, but often doesn't bother to mail these precious messages. When a woman who's paid Dora to put in writing a pleading note to her son's long-missing dad gets run over by a bus, the kid, Josue (Vinicius de Oliveira), is up for grabs. (The summary execution of a thieving street kid--in longshot--underscores the seriousness of this waif's plight.) Afterwards an abortive strive to sell Josue for a new TV, the aspiring couch potato locates herself reluctantly propelled into an occasionally Fellini-esque odyssey throughout the hinterlands of Brazil's sertäo, where Dora and her sidekick locate unexpected faith and family. Former documentary filmmaker Walter Salles (Foreign Land) mixes magic together with realism in his appreciation of striking faces and places, but Central Station is primarily fueled by the tough/tender performances of Montenegro, Brazil's Judy Dench, and de Oliveira, an airport shoeshine boy Salles cast over 1,500 other hopefuls. (Montenegro was nominated for a Excellent Actress Oscar, and Central Station was in the running for Excellent Foreign Language Film.) No cloyingly cute kid-star, de Oliveira plays Josue as a bracingly idiosyncratic brat. And watching Dora's face and soul slowly, unwillingly unclench as she gets back in motion--and emotion--is potent pleasure, even if Salles's trip does dead-end in soap opera as his Brazilian pilgrim's progress winds down. --Kathleen Murphy
Customer Reviews
Humanity Triumphs   2009-05-24
By John F. Rooney
"Central Station" is a Brazilian movie with a simple story line, but it has a tender, affirmative take that many moviegoers will embrace. A spinster, a crotchety middle-aged crone, a professional letter writer in the central railroad station in Rio, is visited by a mother and her son who see her in order to have her write and send a letter to the absent, perhaps shiftless father. (She has a touch of larceny; sometimes she doesn't mail the letters.) When the mother gets killed in an automobile accident, the boy desperately needs the letter writer as a link to his father. An act of greed on her part sends them into each other's orbit. They begin a crosscountry odyssey looking for the father. Throughout the movie and on that journey we see how the lower end of the economic ladder live in Brazil. It's a movie with compassion, a warm feeling, a feel-good movie. We see good people and acts of kindness. The spinster evolves, learns a great deal about herself as the story progresses and as she grows fond of the boy. The spinster is turned around by the persistent, insistent boy whose single-minded goal is finding his father. She almost finds romance with a good-hearted truck driver, but that proves elusive when he keeps on trucking. You'll feel some tearjerking sentimentality, but the movie shows how the humanity of people can build bonds. It's a movie with superb acting, a gentle touch, and insights into what makes us tick as human beings when faced by adversity.
A mess!   2009-01-25
By Robson Pacheco Coccaro (Miami, FL USA)
This is one of my favorite road movies, but this dvd is a mess! The problems about this video are 2: First is the fact that once we play the movie, there's a constant voiced over commentary on it, And it goes on and on while the movie is played. It took me a while to figure out I had to change the audio settings to be able to watch it. The second problem is the movie is divided in chapters and it doesn't play them all automatically. The only way to go watching it is by using the remote control to move it from one to the next chapter. Frustrating and annoying!
Incredible Journey   2008-08-29
By Randy Keehn (Williston, ND United States)
I watched "Central Station" last night with no real concept of what the movie was about. I just knew that it had been nominated for the Best Foreign Language (BFL) Oscar in 1998. So what film could have possibly beat a movie this good? Well, turns out it was a tough year for the BFL with nominees that included "Grandfather", "Tango", "Children of Heaven", and the winner "Life is Beautiful". With appologies to "Saving Private Ryan", 1998 looks to me to have been a year where the Best Foreign Language nominees were, overall, better than the Best Picture nominees (other BP nominees were "Elizabeth", "Shakespeare in Love", "The Thin Red Line" and "Life is Beautiful"). I admit that I was not immediately drawn into "Central Station". I realized later that the director did the ground work for "Central Station" very skillfully so that, when the movie "took off", we were very aware of who our main characters were. This is a story of a journey by a very odd couple. The various characters and challenges that they encounter touch our emotions and keep us wondering what will happen next. In the end, we are left with that warm fuzzy feeling that only an excellent movie like this can deliver. I was satisfied with the ending because I realized that the director, Walter Salles, had given us everything we needed. He left us at the right emotional peak with the eventual outcome secure in our immagination. The actors were new to me but they were, as a whole, excellent. The scenes in the non-Amazonian back country of Brazil were impressive. The directing was outstanding. I remember one scene where our young boy, Josue, is alone and weeping in the station while evil eyes are looking out from dark corners. It was a brief, chilling reminder of what was at stake for Josue. The imperfections in the main characters keeps "Central Station" from becoming too predictable. Our emotional involvement is earned and tested and our satisfaction is real. Don't miss a chance to see this one!
Finding lost souls...   2008-04-20
By D. Kanigan (CT, USA)
Young Brazilian boy (Josue) yearns to meet his father who left his Mother shortly after he was born. Josue and his illiterate Mother visit a letter writer (Dora) at a Rio train station to compose a letter to his Father in an attempt to reach out to him. Shortly after leaving the letter writer, a horrible accident leaves Josue homeless. Josue, a suspicious, crafty, sharp-tongued young boy finds his way back to Dora - and then through an unusual set of events (which we won't disclose here) - they depart on a journey to find his father. Dora, played by Fernanda Montnegro, is magnificent in this film. She is a cynical, sad, middle aged former school teacher who you dislike early on in the film - to someone you begin to acquire compassion for - to a heartfelt ending where you can't help but feel admiration and warmth. The story opens in Rio de Janeiro where you see spectacular pictures of the crowded trains, train stations, tenement housing - and then moves into the Brazilian countryside where the film-maker captures the desolation, the hardships and the simplicity of life. The film is wrapped in beautiful fitting piano music. Beautiful, moving film...
Central Station   2008-04-13
By Johanna Harmon (Chicago, IL)
Central Station is an amazing movie! The two main characters are easy to love and to hate. If you have good taste in movies you'll love it!