Central Station

I thought this movie was terrific, a little slow in parts, but I cared about the characters and was interested in their journey. I also liked the fact that the main character was not portrayed as a saint - Dora is a real person, flaws and all. Montenegro was robbed at the Oscars and so was the movie.

A wonderful film, that works on several layers. This is a film about a cynical woman who becomes a "mother" to a young boy who has just lost his mother. Through the course of this film, this woman, Dora, learns to love. The young boy, Josue, learns to live again. Each is so clearly delineated and so clearly defined that the film is a pleasure from beginning to end.

Central Station actually beat "Life is Beautiful" at some of the world's top awards ceremonies for that year, and you can see why. Its acting is superb, and Walter Salles' direction is with a masterly touch. The cinematography, evoking that desaturated, golden world of Brazil is beautiful - it's a lesson in itself on how to make an apparently 'gritty' world very beautiful. Watch this film.

In reality, there are a finite amount of interesting story lines to tell. What makes one movie telling the same storyline more worthwhile to see is a combination of creative expression, in depth character development, superb acting, exquisite photography, and believability, or the ability to persuade the moviegoer to suspend disbelief.

How many times have we been exposed to a retelling of Shirley Temple's Heidi, where a young non-related child falls into the life of an old curmudgeon, and teaches that curmudgeon to enjoy life and/or develop morals and values? Too many times for me, so I was reluctant to see this film. It would have been a shame had I not.

There are many creative twists and turns along the way to keep the suspense level up in this film. The photography in Rio is OK, but once out in the Brazilian countryside, it is fantastic. At the end of the film, there is little doubt but that the way this story turns out is how it would have had to turn out. The character development of Josue is a little weak, but that of Dora is superb. And you will see a lot of films before you will see an acting performance like Fernanda Montenegro's as Dora again.

This movie thankfully is not overly sentimental, that would get in the way of the story, it is just a great film to watch and enjoy. 9 of 10.

Having been born and raised in Rio and visited many other parts of Brazil and abroad, I have to recognize that the film is not completely accurate, but still very touching. Let's start with the inaccuracies: yes, teens and children are still murdered in the city slums, but it has more to do with drug dealing wars. Those absurd stories of having kids (and sometimes adults) kidnapped to have their organs extracted and sold in the black market are as untrue as it could be. However, crooks and con men and women like the ones presented there, trying to make some easy money from whatever they can find, is more than real. Another inaccuracy is the huge number of illiterate people who need Dora's help for writing their letters. Actually, nowadays and since a long time ago, you can hardly find real illiterate people in Rio. There are bunches of people who commit hundreds of grammar and spelling mistakes, but they're perfectly able to express their ideas on paper. Inaccurate facts apart, it is one of the most beautiful stories of love and friendship that has ever been set on screen. And the best of all is that, to become nominee for the Academy Award, it didn't need CGI, the appealing cliché of violence and sex, which is almost always expected from Brazilian movies. Dora's suffered and empty heart and unorthodox honesty input by a whole life of deceptions, changes as she spends time with little Josue and she finds space to become a much better person. It's been almost twenty years since I first watched Central Station, but I still can clearly remember leaving the theater surrounded by hordes of women crying and men pretending not to. Frankly speaking, for a very long time, I refused to watch the Italian "Life is beautiful" by super-talented writer, director and actor Roberto Begnini just because it had defeated "Central Station" in the Academy Award, nevertheless when my prejudice was finally gone, I had to recognize a respectful rival. What didn't make any sense was Gwyneth Paltrow's artificial and almost amateur acting in "Shakespeare in Love" having defeated Fernanda Montenegro who really rocked, as usual. So, if you want to enjoy a touching and realistic film which will probably have you in tears, give it a try and take a couple hours to watch this masterpiece of the Brazilian movie industry.

This film is uncommonly powerful, with very dark tones but bursting with hope and love. The main character, a jaded and bitter letter writer working in Brazil's largest train station (Fernanda Montenegro), is suddenly burdened with a kid who eventually wins her over. But unlike the common feel-good comedies with the same setup, Central do Brasil takes the viewer on a sometimes hopeless, openly vulnerable, and powerfully emotional journey. You can really feel the connection between the boy and his new caretaker – you can feel all of her emotions, really, because her acting is just that spectacular. The acting, the camera work, the soundtrack, and the beautifully written story all come together to produce just an amazing movie, well worth watching, that may just jerk a tear from your eye.