Heralded by critics and film fans, and rightly so, Central Station (Central do Brasil) is the story of an unlikely friendship between the 67-year-old Dora (Fernanda Montenegro) and a 10-year-old boy Josué (Vinicius de Oliviera). Dora works as a letter writer (employed by the illiterate) in the busy Rio de Janeiro train station. Josué’s mother pays Dora to write a letter to Josué’s long-missing father, only to be run over by a bus moments later. Out of guilt (namely since she rarely mails the letters people pay her to write – instead laughing over them with her roommate), she takes Josué into her home and eventually on a difficult journey to a remote section of Brazil to find Josué’s father.
It’s a fascinating and moving tale held together by lush photography. It’s worth a look just to see a different side of Brazil – its poverty and squalor – rather than what we normally see in the form of carnaval in Rio de Janeiro.