CENTRAL STATION
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: A retired teacher who works in Rio's
Central Station and boy who has lost his mother
become mismatched travel companions on a
bittersweet journey through rural Brazil. That
they should go from hating each other to being
friends is a dramatic cliche, but the look at the
lives of the poor and the pious of Brazil makes
this film worth the trip. Rating: 6 (0 to 10),
high +1 (-4 to +4)
Oscar-nominated Fernanda Montenegro plays Dora, a retire school teacher who earns a modest living working in Rio's Central Station, a bus and train station. She writes letters for the illiterate. But she rarely if ever mails the letters. Instead, she cynically uses her position to look into the lives of her uneducated clientele to laugh at and despise them. Hers is one of many dirty businesses that prey on people who travel through the station. One day Dora sees one of her clients accidentally hit by a bus and killed leaving the client's son Josua (played by Vinicius de Oliveira) homeless. She is initially untouched by the boy's plight. Eventually she is drawn in and decides to accompany the boy on a bus trip to be sure he finds his father. Her journey takes will take on many meanings as she learn to love first the boy and through him the illiterate poor of Brazil as she learns to understand each better. Unlike the approach that would likely be taken with an American or British film the poor are not shown to be quirky and humorous. Director Walter Salles, Jr., gives them a quiet and pious dignity. Chance makes Dora herself one of the rural poor, even if only temporarily and from this vantage point she sees the poor very differently. She also will see this journey as a sort of last chance to grasp life and a last chance to escape her cynicism actually feel inspired as she once did. Salles shows us she is in more desperation than the boy she is helping.
A Frank Capra would have handled the story making the people that Dora meets offbeat. Salles is not quite so subtle. He floods the film with Biblical and religious allusions. In the United States, religious imagery in film often has a sinister overtone. Certainly American filmmakers are frequently willing to show a sinister side to religion. Our films frequently portray fraudulent evangelists like Elmer Gantry or vaguely sadistic Catholic schools as we saw in THE SAINT. Salles is making a film for a Brazilian audience for whom fervent Catholicism is an unquestioned virtue. For that reason frequently a viewer in the United States will be wondering what point Salles may be trying to make when, in fact, he will have already made his point. We may wonder at the significance of the Biblical names of men in Josua's family, when the real point is just to say that these are all simple and good people.
Salles does create a definite dichotomy between city people and country people. City people, particularly those who work in the station, are soulless people who look dispassionately on death for minor infractions like shoplifting. The country people, never well defined, are simple, pious, and pure. When they use Dora as a scribe, they open into their lives a window that is purer and finer than what Dora sees in the city people. Oliveira's acting as the boy is simple, but very natural. But of equal importance with the actors is the setting. We see Brazil with its road stops. We see people willing to show Dora small kindness that it is implied they would not show her in the city.
Central Station is a road picture touching look into the lives of the people of Brazil. Perhaps it simplifies them a bit, but Fernanda Montenegro gives a solid performance as a woman going through unexpected changes. Part of what makes her stand out for audiences is her worn face, almost like a female Humphrey Bogart. But her performance is what gives the film what power it has. I rate CENTRAL STATION a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1999 Mark R. Leeper
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