'Central Station' (1998)
A movie review by Walter Frith
wfrith@cgocable.net
Member of the ‘Online Film Critics Society' http://ofcs.org/ofcs/
1998 was an extraordinary year for foreign films that made a big splash in North America. Roberto Benigni's 'Life is Beautiful' was the first film in almost thirty years (since Costa-Gavras' 'Z' from Algeria in 1969) to be nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar as well as in the mainstream Best Picture Oscar category. 'Central Station' is a touching story also nominated for a Foreign Language Film Oscar (Brazil). In the mainstream categories, it is a nominee for Best Actress for Fernanda Montenegro. A role she makes the most of and she carries the entire picture pretty much by herself.
Set in Brazil, she plays a clerk name Dora who works at the central train station in Rio and has a very special occupation. She sits at her desk in the middle of the train station lobby and writes letters for people who are illiterate. People dictate want they want said and she writes it all down by hand. Her expertise as a retired school teacher helps her a great deal. She often takes the letters home where she reads them with her man hungry friend Irene (Marilia Pera) and she destroys many of the letters by taking it upon herself to decide which letters are appropriate and which are not. Sort of a motherly figure to the young people she writes the letters for or you get the feeling she is sort of like the mother in law from hell by the way she remarks about some of the literature she's written for others.
One ordinary day at work, she composes a letter for a woman who wants to send a message to the father of her young son. The letter is full of scorn as she fills the composition with hateful remarks by telling the boy his father is worthless and so on and so on. Later, after changing her mind and having the letter altered to be a little more sincere, she leaves the station with the boy and is killed is traffic after being hit by a bus when the child becomes separated from her. Dora takes the boy in for a short while and later sends him to an agency that supposedly finds homes in more prosperous places for the children such as the U.S. and Europe. Finding out the the agency is really a place where children are killed off and their organs sold at very high prices, she steals the boy back and has the criminals searching for her. Having the letter in hand that was to be sent to his father, Montenegro helps the young man find his father by going on a cross country search for him. Brazil is a larger country than most people realize and their sprawling adventure is most unusual, enjoyable and totally believable.
'Central Station' is sort of filmed like a documentary. Ordinary but effective camera work, simple locations, standard costumes but excellent acting from all including that of Vincius de Oliveira who plays the child in need. The film is directed by Walter Salles and written by Joao Emanuel Carneiro and Marcos Bernstein by on an original idea by Salles.
It's one of those tear jerker films that has a meaningful ending and its heart warming story of a woman who never married but has deep maternal instincts is one that can and should be appreciated by anyone who hates reading subtitles. This film makes you forget that you're reading them and makes you feel like you're reading the character's emotions. Extraordinary!
OUT OF 5 > * * * *
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* * * * * - a must see * * * * 1/2 - don't miss it * * * * - an excellent film * * * 1/2 - a marginal recommendation * * * - can't quite recommend it * * 1/2 - don't recommend it * * - avoid it * 1/2 - avoid it seriously * - avoid it AT ALL COSTS 1/2 - see it at your own risk zero - may be hazardous to your health
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