Central Station (1998): Walter Salles Highly Charged Drama, Starring Fernanda Montenegro in Oscar-Nominated Performance, with Marília Pêra

Central Station tells the emotionally charged story of a young boy’s friendship with a jaded middle-aged woman named Dora.

Dora is a retired schoolteacher who works at Rio’s Central Station, writing letters for illiterate customers to earn a living. Embittered by life, she shows lack of patience (0r any sympathy) with customers. In fact, sometimes, she does not mail the letters she writes, putting them in a drawer or even tearing them up instead.

One of her customers is the mother of Josué, a poor 9-year-old boy who hopes to meet his unknown father someday. When she is killed in a bus accident outside the train station, and Josué is left homeless, Dora feels compelled to take him in. At first, she trafficks him to a corrupt couple, but later steals him back out of guilt.

Initially reluctant to be responsible for the boy, Dora eventually decides to accompany him on a trip to northeastern Brazil in search of his father.

From that point on, Central Station assumes the shape of a road movie, though director Salles avoids effectively any familiar notions of that popular genre. (You cannot compare it to any other road picture).

The ending is unbearably painful to watch, defying any ore-conceived expectations,

Noted Brazilian Fernanda Montenegro’s performance earned her international critical acclaim and a nomination for the Best Actress Oscar (becoming the first and to date the only Brazilian actress to ever be nominated in the lead actress category), while the film also received a nomination for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

Grade: A- (**** out of *****)

Central Station
Theatrical release poster

Portuguese	Central do Brasil

Central Station had its world premiere at a regional film festival in Switzerland on January 16, 1998, and 3 days later screened at the Sundance Film Fest; Robert Redford served as exec producer.

She then won critical praise from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, which declared a tie between her and Ally Sheedy, and top kudo from the National Board of Review (NBR).

Some critics have compared “Central Station” the Italian neo-realist cinema of the 1940s, specifically the work of Vittorio De Sica, though Salles’ film is much more stylized (just look at the lighting).

Her character, Dora, is not a particularly sympathetic character, and the fact that Montenegro is a Brazilian, makes her achievement all the more striking. Only a few actresses have been nominated for a foreign-language film, especially one that is not from Europe.

Critical and Commercial Appeal

The movie took by storm the Berlin Film Fest, where it played on February 14, 1998.

Central Station became the highest-grossing Brazilian film released that year.

It was the highest-grossing Brazilian film in the U.S. with a gross of $6.5 million, surpassing the $3 million of the 1976 film Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands

Central Station was in turn surpassed by the 2002 film City of God, which grossed $7.5 million. It earned $11.7 million in the rest of the world for a worldwide total of $22,462,500.

My Oscar Book:

Oscar Nomination: 2

Best Foreign Language Film Oscar

Best Actress: Fernanda Montenegro

Oscar Context

The winner that year was Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love, which also won Best Picture.

Credits:

Directed by Walter Salles
Screenplay by João Emanuel Carneiro, Marcos Bernstein, story by Walter SallesProduced by Arthur Cohn, Martine de Clermont-Tonnerre, Robert RedfordCinematography Walter Carvalho
Edited by Felipe Lacerda
Music by Antonio Pinto, Jaques Morelenbaum, Stewart CopelandProduction companies: VideoFilmes, MACT ProductionsDistributed by Europa Filmes (Brazil); Mars Distribution (France)Release dates: April 3, 1998 (Brazil); Dec 2, 1998 (France)

Running time: 113 minutes

Language Portuguese
Budget $2.9 million
Box office $22 million

Central Station (1998): Walter Salles Highly Charged Drama, Starring Fernanda Montenegro in Oscar-Nominated Performance, with Marília Pêra

Critical and Commercial Appeal

Oscar Nomination: 2

PROFESSOR / CRITIC / AUTHOR