Customer Reviews

Central Station [VHS]

5 star:		(92)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

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.

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.

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!

What is so unique about CENTRAL STATION is that rarely,if ever,is a woman actress called upon in a leading role as a Dickensesque Fagin-like character,hustling the public,shoplifting,child-selling and running from the law.To see Fernanda Montenegro pull this off IS WORTH THE ENTIRE FILM!!!Some performances just simply are 100% spot-on.Such is the case here.As no one else could ever be Meryl Streep's Sophie in SOPHIE'S CHOICE,so no one else could ever be Montenegro's Dora.It just simply does not get better than this.Her performance is simply arresting.You'll love Dora and you will hate Dora,but one thing's for sure-you will see Dora totally and memorably brought to life by a true actress among actresses.

I just watched this movie for the fourth time. I had to show it to friends when it was released back in 1999. And after almost six years I still get the same emotions every time I watch it. This is the kind of movie that reminds people that simple things in life are the ones that should be cherished the most. A friendship that was born out of necessity and doubt, and a partnership that leads the two main characters into a world where the true meaning of "well doing" is exposed. Central Station captures two opposites' souls in a sort of a dance of character and personality, bringing different worlds together: The old and the young, a woman and a boy, a literate and an illiterate, experience and novelty. Central Station is sure to capture your attention for two hours and leave a feeling of satisfaction in you after seeing it. Superb acting and a great storyline are the main elements that make this journey, one that will stick to you for years to come.

Even though I would have loved for this DVD to include a soundtrack or subtitles in Spanish, I believe "Central do Brasil" deserves to be bought in any language or format available. It is amazing to watch a movie with such an ability to provoke scarcely experienced emotions while it offers a beautifully depicted portrait of Brazil, its culture, people and landscape, all entwined with a touching story delivered to us through a masterful combination of actors and non-actors. Fernanda Montenegro gained a lot of recognition with her portrayal of Dora, and she deserved it. It is a pity they didn't award her the Oscar. Her young counterpart in the film, Vinicius de Oliveira, was also outstanding and very convincing. I keep this film in a preferred position among the best films I've ever seen.

Possibly the best foreign film to come out of Brazil since the days of "Pixote," and "Black Orpheus," "Central Station" is a heartbreaking account of a retired school teacher who befriends a recently-orphaned boy at Rio de Janiero's bus terminal. Fernanda Montenegro is fabulous as Dora, a single woman who lives her life for herself. Vincius de Oliveira, who plays Josue, is amazing in his first starring role. Personally, I feel that Montenegro was robbed of the Best Actress Oscar due to Gwyneth Paltrow's popularity that year, and it is a tragedy, for her performance is powerful. The film was also robbed of the Best Foreign Language Oscar due to Roberto Benigni's annoying antics and Miramax's powerful lobbying. The film which takes you from the beautiful Braganza-era buildings of Rio to the Brazilian hinterlands is like a dream. The vastness and beauty of Brazil and its' inhabitants are covered with sensitivity and grace by director Walter Salles. It was refreshing to see many of Brazil's sprawling developments, many which were created by the militry junta that ruled the country from the 1960's to 1980's due to lower density rates in major costal cities and to protect the country's borders from communist insurgents in the Guianas. If you need a good tearjerker in the tradition of the Color Purple, please see this masterpiece.

This movie is true magic and so beautifully crafted that it really deserved to win the oscar for best foreign movie. Alas, there is only one place for one winner and no chance to get it "exequoe" with La vita e bella (that I really liked too : I cried in both movies). There are no sexual or big action scenes, it is all about life, true life. You do not have to think, you just have to feel, feel how love and trust grow between Josue and Dora (two antithetic persons that just crave for human relations and affection), share Josue's stubbornness and hopes and Dora's cynicism and fondness for the boy.. For me, Fernanda Montenegro has won the oscar for best actress. I watched the other nominees' performance (that were all good in their own way) but she is the only one that made me cry at the end and the only one whose character I can easily relate with (Fernanda renders it extremelly well) : she is the best. Watch this movie, it reflects reality and real concerns and problems of today (materialism cannot replace human touch, organs traffic, poverty, ...). Its message is simple: Life is hard enough, do not let people spoil it and destroy your dreams, do not give them up no matter what, and if you are desillusioned in your attempts, at least you would have tried and would have known and learnt from them. Life is all about experience.

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.

I can't and would not want to verbalize the depth of this film, and the emotions--many long-buried--that it evoked in me. Though sparely rendered, I think that the story is mythic in proportion. The parallel journeys, outward toward love for the boy, and inward into Love for the woman, are so redolent of the world-widespread alienation of people from their own hearts. Love was the star of this film, rising, as noted in another review, from angry suppression to direct authentic expression. This movie is true nourishment in its presentation of what people need (Love), rather than the endless things we want then drop in succession. The fact that it comes to us from a country with so little compared to my own (the united states) affirms my own long-standing hypothesis that the apprehension of truth is available only when outer circumstances are inimical to the satisfaction of our desire for distraction. From this poor and seemingly chaotic country comes an injunction to which our indefatigable yen for "options" and "upgrades" deafens us: Love alone is real. The first time I watched it I cried at the end. I've watched it many times since, and have each time wept throughout the film, observing its trajectory, and knowing where it will end up. May I ask, why is it that our country can't produce performers like Fernanda Montenegro? Her Oscar loss to Gwyneth Paltrow can only be attributed to xenophobia and ageism. Gwyneth may be able to speak stylishly, and even emote a wee bit, but Montenegro brings to her performance a range spanning haggard cynicism to vulnerable abandon and beyond in many directions. The piano theme which repeats throughout the film has become like a mantra reminding me to stay in my heart. I've seen all of Bergman, Fellini, de Sica, and others...and, at least for now, THIS is my favorite movie of all time!