Central Station

Central Station
by Walter Salles

List Price: ~~$24.96~~
Our Price: $22.49
You Save: $2.47 (10%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $10.20 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases

Compare Prices for Central Station

Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada

DVD Cover Information

Actor: Fernanda Montenegro, Mar?lia P?ra, Othon Bastos, Soia Lira, Vin?cius de Oliveira
Director: Walter Salles
Brand: Sony
Writer: Walter Salles
Producer: Afonso Coaracy
Producer: Arthur Cohn
Producer: Donald Ranvaud
Producer: Elisa Tolomelli
Writer: Jo?o Emanuel Carneiro
Writer: Marcos Bernstein
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Portuguese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 113 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-07-13
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures

Movie Reviews of Central Station

Movie Review: Humanity Triumphs
Summary: 5 Stars

"Central Station" is a Brazilian movie with a simple story line, but it has a tender, affirmative take that many moviegoers will embrace. A spinster, a crotchety middle-aged crone, a professional letter writer in the central railroad station in Rio, is visited by a mother and her son who see her in order to have her write and send a letter to the absent, perhaps shiftless father. (She has a touch of larceny; sometimes she doesn't mail the letters.)
When the mother gets killed in an automobile accident, the boy desperately needs the letter writer as a link to his father. An act of greed on her part sends them into each other's orbit. They begin a crosscountry odyssey looking for the father. Throughout the movie and on that journey we see how the lower end of the economic ladder live in Brazil.
It's a movie with compassion, a warm feeling, a feel-good movie. We see good people and acts of kindness. The spinster evolves, learns a great deal about herself as the story progresses and as she grows fond of the boy. The spinster is turned around by the persistent, insistent boy whose single-minded goal is finding his father. She almost finds romance with a good-hearted truck driver, but that proves elusive when he keeps on trucking.
You'll feel some tearjerking sentimentality, but the movie shows how the humanity of people can build bonds.
It's a movie with superb acting, a gentle touch, and insights into what makes us tick as human beings when faced by adversity.

Write your own review

More Central Station reviews:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Summary of Central Station

A moving tale of the human spirit concerning an orphaned boy befriended by a lonely and cynical woman. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 06/24/2008 Starring: Fernanda Montenegro Marilia Pera Run time: 106 minutes Rating: R Director: Walter Salles

In the opening scenes of Central Station, colorful crowds of Brazilians stream into and out of a Rio de Janeiro train, pushing through doors and windows. You're immediately pulled into the brutal vitality of a nation in motion, setting the tone for a picturesque road movie that charts Brazil's renaissance in a little boy's search for his father and an old woman's emotional reawakening. When we first meet Dora (Fernanda Montenegro), this frozen-hearted, sour-faced woman is the epitome of immobility: day after day, she sits in the train station selling her letter-writing skills to all comers, but often doesn't bother to mail these precious messages. When a woman who's paid Dora to write a pleading note to her son's long-missing dad gets run over by a bus, the child, Josue (Vinicius de?Oliveira), is up for grabs. (The summary execution of a thieving street kid--in longshot--underscores the seriousness of this waif's plight.) After an abortive attempt to sell Josue for a new TV, the aspiring couch potato finds herself reluctantly propelled into an occasionally Fellini-esque odyssey through the hinterlands of Brazil's sert?o, where Dora and her sidekick find unexpected faith and family. Former documentary filmmaker Walter Salles (Foreign Land) mixes magic with realism in his appreciation of striking faces and places, but Central Station is primarily fueled by the tough/tender performances of Montenegro, Brazil's Judy Dench, and de?Oliveira, an airport shoeshine boy Salles cast over 1,500 other hopefuls. (Montenegro was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, and Central Station was in the running for Best Foreign Language Film.) No cloyingly cute child-star, de?Oliveira plays Josue as a bracingly idiosyncratic brat. And watching Dora's face and soul slowly, unwillingly unclench as she gets back in motion--and emotion--is potent pleasure, even if Salles's trip does dead-end in soap opera as his Brazilian pilgrim's progress winds down. --Kathleen Murphy

Art House & International DVD Video

DVD Video

Movies most talked about in The Best Modern Foreign Films

Y Tu Mama Tambien
TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2002-10-22; DVD
Best price: $7.64
Price in other shops: ~~$14.98~~

Water
TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2006-08-29; DVD
Best price: $11.17
Price in other shops: ~~$19.98~~

Children of Heaven
Release date: 2002-09-03; DVD
Best price: $6.89
Price in other shops: ~~$19.99~~

Monsoon Wedding
Universal; Release date: 2002-09-24; DVD
Best price: $3.64
Price in other shops: ~~$9.99~~

Not One Less
Sony; Release date: 2000-08-22; DVD
Best price: $20.76
Price in other shops: ~~$29.95~~

Babel
Paramount; Release date: 2007-02-20; DVD
Best price: $4.45
Price in other shops: ~~$29.99~~

The Hidden Blade
Genius; Release date: 2006-08-08; DVD
Best price: $5.59
Price in other shops: ~~$19.95~~

Cache (Hidden)
Sony; Release date: 2006-06-27; DVD
Best price: $5.72
Price in other shops: ~~$14.94~~

Pan's Labyrinth
Warner Brothers; Release date: 2007-05-15; DVD
Best price: $2.16
Price in other shops: ~~$12.98~~

The Twilight Samurai
Release date: 2004-12-28; DVD
Best price: $13.94
Price in other shops: ~~$26.98~~

Similar DVD Movies

Black Orpheus - Criterion Collection
Image Entertainment; Release date: 1999-06-08; DVD
Best price: $19.20
Price in other shops: ~~$29.95~~

Elite Squad
Elite; Release date: 2008-10-28; DVD
Best price: $7.08
Price in other shops: ~~$14.95~~

God Is Brazilian
Release date: 2005-02-15; DVD
Best price: $12.38
Price in other shops: ~~$19.95~~

The Motorcycle Diaries (Widescreen Edition)
Universal; Release date: 2005-02-15; DVD
Best price: $3.85
Price in other shops: ~~$12.98~~

Bus 174
Release date: 2004-07-20; DVD
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops: ~~$9.95~~

The Man Who Copied
Release date: 2005-08-16; DVD
Best price: $7.88
Price in other shops: ~~$14.99~~

House of Sand (Widescreen)
Sony; Release date: 2006-12-12; DVD
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops: ~~$14.94~~

THE MIDDLE OF THE WORLD (O Caminho das Nuvens)
Release date: 2005-01-01; Published: 2004; DVD
Best price: $13.89
Price in other shops: ~~$19.95~~