The film centers on a young boy (Vinicius de Oliveira) whose mother is killed in front of Rio de Janeiro's Central Station. Homeless and with nowhere to turn, he is reluctantly befriended by a lonely and cynical woman (Montenegro). Resisting her initial impulse to make a quick profit off the child, she commits to returning him to his father in Brazil's remote Northeast.

Filmography

1998 Midnight
1998 Central do Brasil
1995 Life Somewhere Else
1995 Foreign Land
1991 High Art

Review

"Central do Brasil is a film about a boy in search of a father and a woman in search of a country. It is also a film about the search for an identity and the possibilities of surrendering to affection," explains director Walter Salles of his Brazilian road movie which covers more than 5,000 km of the interior of Brazil and was made for the relatively modest sum of $2.9 million. Central do Brasil’s main protagonist, Dora (played by Fernanda Montenegro, considered Brazil’s greatest living actress), is a retired schoolteacher who spends her time writing letters for the illiterate passers-by who cross through Rio de Janeiro’s biggest and busiest train station, Central do Brasil.

Dora has cultivated a precarious cynicism to survive the choice she must make on a daily basis as to which of the letters she will post and which she will bin. Among her clients is a woman who is accompanied by her nine-year old son, Josué (played by 11-year-old newcomer, Vinícius de Oliveira), who dictates letters to be sent to the boy’s father. Josué dreams of meeting his father, more so when fate intervenes and his mother is run over in front of the station.

Despite initial reservations when she thinks of taking the boy to an adoption agency to make some quick money, Dora decides to accompany Josué on his search for his father in the Brazilian north east. During their long journey on the dirt roads of the Brazilian interior, the teacher and the boy traverse a country that is still far from any social or economic progress. It is the antiquated and primitive part of Brazil which still exists today as the third millennium approaches. Asked if he thinks about winning a prize in Berlin – and with Montenegro’s performance it must be a possibility – Salles says: "You never make a film to win prizes; you make a film because you have a story to tell. The greatest prize I could have was the opportunity to work with Fernanda. Not only is she a great actress but a person of uncommon generosity."

Susana Schild