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Central Station

7.6

14,646

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Original title

Central do Brasil

Year

1998

Running time

115 min.

Country

Brazil

Director

Walter Salles

Screenwriter

João Emanuel Carneiro, Marcos Bernstein

Cast

Music

Antonio Pinto, Jaques Morelenbaum

Cinematography

Walter Carvalho

Producer

MACT Productions, VideoFilmes, Arthur Cohn Productions

Genre

Drama | Road Movie. Poverty. Social Drama

Synopsis

Dora, a dour old woman, works at a Rio de Janeiro central station, writing letters for customers and mailing them. She hates customers and calls them 'trash'. Josue is a 9-year-old boy who never met his father. His mother is sending letters to his father through Dora. When she dies in a car accident, Dora takes Josue and takes a trip with him to find his father.

Rankings Position

#2 Best Brazilian Movies of all time
#62 Best Movies of the '90s

Awards: 1998: 2 Nominations for Oscar: Movie of habla no inglesa, Actress (Fernanda Montenegro)

1998: Golden Globe: Best Foreign Language Picture. 2 Nominations

1998: BAFTA Awards: Best Foreign Language Picture

1998: Berlin Film Festival: Golden Bear and Silver Bear - Best Actress (Fernanda Montenegro)

1998: San Sebastián: Audience Award. Award of la juventud

1998: Sundance Film Festival: Best Screenplay

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Critics' reviews

"Normally the sound in movie theaters is of popcorn crunching. But the sound at theaters where Central Station is showing is of hearts breaking."

Jami Bernard: New York Daily News
"There's plenty of room for sentimentality here, but the wonder of Salles' film is all in the telling."

Elvis Mitchell: The New York Times
"While the cinematography is gorgeous and the script extremely sharp, Central Station owes much of its strength to its two mismatched leads"

Joshua Klein: AV Club
"The movie's success rests largely on the shoulders of Fernanda Montenegro, an actress who successfully defeats any temptation to allow sentimentality to wreck her relationship with the child."

Roger Ebert: Chicago Sun-Times
"It'll probably work better if you're not terribly familiar with the movies that inspired it."

Paul Tatara: CNN
"A richly tender and moving experience"

Owen Gleiberman: Entertainment Weekly
"[Salles]'s imagery, like his storytelling, is clear, often unaffectedly lovely, and quietly, powerfully haunting"

Richard Schickel: Time
"Filled with moments of real poignancy and gentle epiphanies, the film is also marked by strong Christian undercurrents, but, like everything else in Salles's film, they're handled with extraordinary delicacy"

Ken Fox: TV Guide

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Ranking Lists Position

80 My Favorite Movies from Europe & Latin America (32)

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Central Station

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