CENTRAL STATION (Centro do Brasil)

INTRODUCTION: This unusual Brazilian road movie, as opposed to all those standard run-of-the-mill Brazilian road movies, has been a big hit on the festival circuit. Playing to packed theatres from Edinburgh to London and Birmingham to Berlin, winning the Golden Bear at the latter. Now it has secured a distribution deal courtesy of Disney distribution arm, Buena Vista the general public have a chance to admire its charms as well.

SYNOPSIS: Dora (Montenegra) is a former teacher who scrapes a living writing, and when the mood takes her posting, letters for the illiterate clientele of Rio-de-Janeiro's Central Station. When one of her customers dies in a traffic accident she unofficially adopts the orphaned Josue (de Oliveria) and leads him across Brazil in search of his itinerant father, but not before she tries to sell him off to a human-organ farm.

REVIEW: What could, in the hands of a lesser director, so easily of become a sentimental slush fare, of the sort Disney normally deals in, instead becomes a rare film that manages to be both poignant and dramatic. Salles piles on the tension, will they find the father or not?, as he builds up the characters. Although this is fundamentally the tale of the relationship between an ageing woman and a young boy it manages to transcend the boundaries of its basic plot in order to say something to everyone.

This is very much Montenegra's film, as the plot follows her rejuvenation from world-weary old curmudgeon to a kind and productive member of society, and although this transformation is perhaps a little to rapid to be entirely convincing, Montenegra's performance is a revelation, and a well deserving winner of the best actress award at the Berlin Film Festival. It must have been an intimidating task for anyone to play against the superb Montenegra, but young newcomer de Oliveria also puts in an excellent performance as Josue, the source of Dora's redemption.

With this film Salles has constructed a quintessential road movie putting the two miss-matched leads on a quest that we have no better idea where it will take them than they do. Along the way they encounter the usual array of unusual characters and situations that teach them about themselves while teaching us about life in modern Latin America. It is no surprise to learn that Salles is another director who made his reputation in documentaries before moving into narrative film first with "A Grand Art" in '94 and the with the critically acclaimed "Terra Estrangeria" in '95. This training allows him to create a wonderful mis-en-scene, painting sumptuous backgrounds from the locations while never losing the focus on the characters. And do they find Josue father or not? Well I'll leave that for you discover.

Well worth the trip.

Mutt's Rating: ****

Home | Reviews | Reputations | Contact the Lizard