Susan Granger's review of "CENTRAL STATION" (Sony Pictures Classics)
The Academy Award nominee from Brazil for Best Foreign Language film and Best Actress, Fernanda Montenegro, this superb film transcends words and culture. It's the tale of a nasty woman and a naive, ten year-old boy who meet at Rio's train station and, eventually, strike out on a cross-country journey to find the boy's estranged father. It revolves around alienation and a quest for identity: the search for a parent whom a child has never met, the search for feelings that an older woman thought she had lost, and the search for a country that, perhaps, has vanished forever. Fernanda Montenegro delivers a fearless, masterful performance as the lonely, world-weary former schoolteacher who makes her money writing letters for illiterate people. Only she's a scam artist. She saves on postage by never mailing anything. Instead, she rips the letters up or stuffs them into a drawer, mocking her customers' emotional outpourings. Her crusty, unsentimental characterization never resorts to hardened, cynical caricature, winning her the Best Actress nod from the National Board of Review and Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Director Walter Salles discovered the irrepressible child, adorable Vinicius de Oliveira, working as a shoeshine boy at the Rio airport and, indeed, he shines in his demanding, extraordinary role. About this quietly optimistic fable, Salles explains: "When you come from a privileged part of Brazilian society, as I do, you have to opt either to be part o that culture of indifference or to understand what the country really is." On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Central Station" is a richly moving and tender 10, reminiscent of "The Bicycle Thief." I suspect that "Central Station" and "Life is Beautiful" will be the two major Foreign Language contenders.
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