Product Details

• Actors: Fernanda Montenegro, Vinícius de Oliveira, Marília Pêra, Soia Lira, Othon Bastos
• Directors: Walter Salles
• Writers: Walter Salles, João Emanuel Carneiro, Marcos Bernstein
• Producers: Afonso Coaracy, Arthur Cohn, Donald Ranvaud, Elisa Tolomelli
• Format: Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Language: German, Portuguese
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: January 11, 2000
• Run Time: 113 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (117 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0767819543
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #219,544 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

In the opening scenes of Central Station, colorful crowds of Brazilians stream into and out of a Rio de Janeiro train, pushing through doors and windows. You're immediately pulled into the brutal vitality of a nation in motion, setting the tone for a picturesque road movie that 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 after 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 write a pleading note to her son's long-missing dad gets run over by a bus, the child, 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.) After an abortive attempt to sell Josue for a new TV, the aspiring couch potato finds herself reluctantly propelled into an occasionally Fellini-esque odyssey through the hinterlands of Brazil's sertäo, where Dora and her sidekick find unexpected faith and family. Former documentary filmmaker Walter Salles (Foreign Land) mixes magic 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 Best Actress Oscar, and Central Station was in the running for Best Foreign Language Film.) No cloyingly cute child-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

From The New Yorker

Against her nature, Dora (Fernanda Montenegro), an intelligent but nihilistic old bag-a retired schoolteacher who writes letters for illiterate people and then never mails them-leaves Rio de Janeiro with a little boy in tow and takes to the road. The boy's mother has been killed, and his desire to see his missing father stirs something in Dora. The two of them are practically hoboes, but once they leave Rio life opens up for them. This shrewd, tough, and bighearted Brazilian movie, directed by Walter Salles, moves surely and convincingly from utter negation to something like guarded optimism. A great star in Brazil, Montenegro rivals such legendary actresses as Jeanne Moreau and Giulietta MASINa in her ability to alter her moods from mask-of-tragedy woe to childish pleasure without apparent calculation. With handsome Vinicius de Oliveira as the boy and Marília Pra as Dora's friendly neighbor. In Portuguese. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dora and Josue, February 19, 2005

By 

muskiedine (U.S.) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Central Station [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The transforming and redemptive power of forgiveness is the major theme in this moving film from Brazil. The two leads, Dora, an older woman whose self-imposed sheltered life has been long shut-off from the yearnings and longings that make us human, and Josue, a young boy who forces her to confront her detachment as such, move the viewer from a jolting start to a warm, satisfying ending.

This is a film I never get tired of. The performances are great; the musical score is subtle, yet significant; the people and places are compelling; and the story, although perhaps somewhat manipulative, is overall enjoyable.

Some reviewers have side-stepped the warmth of this movie in attacking it as pretentious, cliche, and overtly sentimental. Although these are valid arguments, I felt that overall these points are forgiveable and easy to overlook.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brazilian's Greatest Female Actress at her Peak, October 4, 2002

By 

Nandinha (NANDinha, PORTUGAL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Central Station (DVD)

This is a film of contrasts. From Rio de Janeiro's Metropolis-like urban hell to Brasil's Nordeste - a barren place of barren and huge landscapes and unmittigated Faith.
Dora's character, played by sublime actress Fernanda Montenegro (Oscar nominated and certainly worthy of winning...) evolves from an urban Rio de Janeiro's letter writer-devil'll do all to a mother figure to street kid Josué after his own mother dies.
After that this is a spiritual road movie - for Josué's long lost father - and for Dora's long lost faith in herself and in other human beings - which she eventually achieves most purely in Josués character.
This is a powerful movie. Christianly so. Any religion-so. But mostly a movie about trust in the residual bits of humanity that allow those in near-despair to believe. Maybe not in God as such - but in christian individuals as such...
So is this a religious movie? Not exactly. And not at all a Catholic one.
But it is a delightful innocent mix-up of beliefs, with a kind of untainted christianism standing out.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HOW CAN I EXPRESS HOW TOUCHING THIS FILM IS!, September 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Central Station (DVD)

The first time I saw this film I came to the conclusion it was not only a simple movie. It was pure MAGIC! I was so touched that I could not stop crying.At the end the audience gave the movie a great and long run of applause! I saw it again in movie theaters many other times. And the pleasure I felt each time I saw it again was greater and greater. After the fifth time I started going to the cinema to see the other people's reaction to it. It was incredible the way the movie pleased all kinds of people (the young, the old, men, women, etc). I am so glad I can share this experience with people from all over the world! Thank you for the oportunity of having it in video! WATCH CENTRAL STATION, and if you're at least a little bit sensitive you'll have an extraordinary experience!