Real, raw Brazil

In 1990, Brazil’s economy was shut down to curb inflation. Culture all but ground to a halt. For five years, almost no films were made.

But Brazil’s culture is rich, colorful and most of all resilient and would not be held down by slimy politicians. Legend has it that, not ready to be downtrodden, students and workers took to the streets and successfully pressured Congress to impeach their culture-obliterating president. When the floodgates burst open, Walter Salles’ “Central do Brasil (Central Station)” came roaring out. There has been much ado in the past two years about the emergence of a great Latin cinema, and this film more than any other got that ball rolling.

Brazilian film is preoccupied with identity, both national and personal. When American filmmakers want to find and depict the “real” America, most head out West. When Brazilians get this same urge, they set their sights on the sertão, Brazil’s vast desert region. Salles is known as cinema’s road movie specialist, and the desert journey in Central Station is what earned him the title. 

The trip is led by Dora, a grumpy retired schoolteacher who writes letters in Rio de Janeiro’s central transit station for the city’s illiterate. When one of her customers is hit by a bus outside the station, she reluctantly assumes responsibility for the deceased’s newly orphaned son Josué. The film is a chronicle of Dora and Josué plunging into Brazil’s seemingly endless desert in search of the boy’s estranged father. The plot centers on the quest of little Josué, but the film really concerns Dora.
She is a character of disparity: unmarried, middle-aged, self-centered and cynical, but also strong, self-sufficient and independent. Her stubborn isolation, a manifestation of urban culture, thaws as she goes deeper into the country and deeper into her relationship with Josué.

As this happens, the chaos and claustrophobia of the city gives way to pastoral Brazil’s silent, cloud-flecked horizons. It is no accident that the film’s color palette gradually morphs from the city’s de-saturated browns and grays to nature’s vibrant blues, greens and whites.

Serendipitously, the 10th birthday of this movie, which is above all about the poignant thaw of a personality that’s been in hibernation for too long, falls in the middle of April.  
Following the trajectory of Salles’ career, one discovers that he becomes looser and less controlling with each subsequent film. The more wisdom, competence and experience he gains, the more he’s able to relinquish control. His films are not characterized by restraint, per se, but by an utter lack of artifice. He doesn’t tamper with the world he’s conveying.

Even in his most epic landscape shots, the land seems to assert itself, rather than Salles having to make a spectacle of it. Many of the most sublime, enchanting, and otherwise memorable scenes in “Central Station” were entirely the result of serendipity and chance. The rhythm and pacing of the film is so accomplished, and its narrative so seamless, that one would never guess. 

One of Salles’ signatures is to juxtapose the best actors with nonactors. Dona is played by Fernanda Montenegro, Brazil’s most respected stage actress (and, as a result of this film, its first Academy Award nominee). On the other hand, Josué is played by Vinícius de Oliveira, a boy who Salles “discovered” prior to the film shining shoes in an airport. Almost all of the film’s extras were nonactors, many of whom were often unaware of their being filmed. Salles claims to have more faith in talent than experience; “Central Station” was written by two rookie nonprofessional screenwriters.

One of the movie’s most moving and memorable scenes – and after the one-hour mark, every scene is memorable – was completely unplanned, according to Salles. The protagonists sit on a bench in the back of a bright-red flatbed truck, their hair whipping around as they fly down the highway in the middle of the desert, Dora crying because all her money is gone. Josué is oblivious, and with good reason: The two are surrounded by elderly Brazilian Catholics of African descent, all dressed in white, praying rosaries and belting out traditional hymns.

It is a credit to Salles’ talent that, without doing the research, we would have never known better. It is our privilege as viewers that, in an era dominated by the green screen, he’s still out there, turning the real world into film.