Central Station
(In Portuguese with English subtitles)
Central Station was one of the favourites to win best foreign film at this year’s Academy Awards, and it is thoroughly deserving of its nomination.
Dora is a retired school teacher who makes ends meet by working
in Rio De Janeiro’s central train station writing letters for illiterate
people.
At
night she sorts through the letters with her neighbor, re-reading
them and deciding which ones get sent, which ones get ripped up,
and which ones will sit in purgatory in her desk draw. One of her
customers is a woman with her 12 year old son Jouse (Vinicius de
Oliveira). She dictates a letter to her Jouse’s father, telling
him his son wishes to meet him. This one gets sent to purgatory.
The woman and her son return the to dictate another letter, and
shortly afterwards the woman is hit by a bus and killed. Her orphaned
son has no choice but to sleep at the station. Dora finds herself
pitying him, and decides to offer him a hand. True to her calculating
nature Dora virtually swaps him for a new television. A nagging
sense of compassion causes Dora to go back, get Jouse, and take
him to his father in rural Brazil.
At times hilarious, Central Station is a surprisingly beautiful and moving film. Take your tissues, you’re in for a treat with this one.
Esther
