Central Station

Central Station is the story of a young boy and older woman brought together to form a bond. Young Josue is with his mother in Central Station where she is having a letter written to the boy's father. Shortly after this, Josue's mother is hit by a bus and killed, leaving Josue abandoned in Rio de Janeiro. Dora, the letter writer, takes him in, but eventually sells him to what is presumed to be an adoption service. She soon finds out that they actually harm the children and steals Josue back and begins her attempt to reunite him with his father. Once Dora has had enough, she tries to abandon Josue at one of the bus stops, but fails, and then they are both stranded. They hitch rides with truckers until they finally reach the address where his mother had written the letters, but Josue's father does not live there anymore. They both keep searching until they find Josue's father's other sons who reveal that their father had vanished months ago. They ask Dora to read a letter than their father had sent to an "Ana" (Josue's mother) at their address many months ago. The letter reads that he had gone looking for Ana in Rio de Janeiro, but assumes she had finally left to go home to him. He promises he will be home soon and Josue and one of the other sons are especially hopeful that this is true. Dora then leaves in the middle of the night, but by then her bond with Josue had grown tremendously. Josue realizes this at dawn and begins chasing after her, though she is long gone. Dora writes Josue a letter while on the bus, and tells him not to forget her.

A prominent theme in Central Station is forgiveness. In the very beginning of the movie, before Josue's mother is killed, she returns to the letter writer to write a new letter to replace the nasty letter she had written earlier. In this letter she wants to be nice, and forgiving to Josue's father. Another instance of this forgiveness is between Josue and Dora. No matter what Dora does; selling Josue to the "adoption service", deserting him at the bus stop, saying horrible things about his parents; Josue forgives her. Even Josue's half brother is hopeful that their father will return and will forgive him for leaving for months without a word.

I enjoyed the characters in Central Station. Josue as a stoic, mature seeming 9 year old boy and Dora as a cold, middle aged, unattractive, unmarried mess. Their peculiar pairing made the movie good. Their interactions were almost always amusing with Josue never smiling or appearing to have a good time and Dora causing trouble one way or another. When the end of the movie neared, it was clear that Dora wanted to stay with Josue and even wanted to take him all the way back home with her. So her leaving, and her heartfelt letter even made me choke up a little. In the end, Dora knew Josue was where he belonged, waiting for his father with respect and with his brothers.

Children of Heaven

What do you do when you lose a pair of shoes? Well, you get frustrated trying to find them, but eventually you just give into wearing a different pair that you own. Easier said than done in this film, when you only have one pair of shoes to wear. Ali loses his younger sister's shoes, and to avoid getting in trouble, they must share Ali's sneakers. Ali is continuously late for school, but never has a good excuse, because who wants to say, "Oh, sorry sir. I was waiting for my little sister to return from school because we share sneakers"? Nobody. Not even some poor children in Iran. With a mother who's ill, and a father who barely pays the rent, Ali can't put another burden on them by confessing that he lost sister Zahra's shoes, so the two children do what they can. Luckily Ali finally thinks he may have a chance at fixing their problem when there is a race announced at school that offers new sneakers for the 3rd place winner. With all the running Ali's been doing to avoid being late to school, now's his time to show off his skills. Well, not so ironically Ali actually winds up winning the race and not winning a new pair of shoes, but instead a more awesome prize that he can't consider appreciating. So he goes home and delivers the bad news to his sister and stews in a mixture of sadness, frustration and disappointment. Luckily, we the viewers had gotten a glimpse of dad on his way home with new shoes for the kids, after he earned some extra money working in the wealthy section of town.




Children of Heaven's themes revolve around family in Ali and Zahra's sticky situation. The audience is brought down to the level of these children, as they tackle obstacles over something that seems so simple. Zahra never tells on Ali, and Ali never gives up trying to fix the problem straight through to deciding he was going to win the race. Both of the children try to get by for the sake of themselves, but also because they know their family cannot afford another pair of sneakers. Zahra races through a test and even asks the teacher what time it is just so she can leave to be on time with Ali's shoes. Ali gives Zahra gifts while he tries to find a way to get back her sneakers. They stick together, and that's what family is about, and that's what this movie portrays in a really heart warming way. Anybody can relate, even though most cannot relate to not having another option in footwear.

Children of Heaven is enjoyable because it's relatable. You want to see these kids win in the end, and at every turn you're waiting for something good to happen. There's no way to watch that race without keeping track of what place Ali is in. You watch it on the edge of your seat, hoping that he keeps third. You want to jump in when he gets reprimanded for being late, because you know he didn't mean to. These kids are the most genuine kids you'd ever seen. For a foreign film, I'd definitely recommend it, even to a younger audience. It's simple, gets the message across, tells a story straight and to the point, and to top it off, even has a happy ending, even if Ali didn't know it yet.

Tsotsi

Tsotsi revolves around a young man who calls himself "Tsotsi", which means thug. A confrontation about his real name at a bar causes an intoxicated Tsotsi to beat one of his friends very badly and then leave to wander into a wealthy community. He winds up shooting a woman and stealing her car, but when he realizes there is an infant in the backseat, he crashes the vehicle. Tsotsi begins to flee from the scene, but eventually returns to retrieve the baby. Through flashbacks we discover that Tsotsi lived a very rough life where his abusive father led him to grow up homeless. Because Tsotsi is having a hard time actually providing for the infant he has taken in, he ends up forcing a young woman to breast feed the baby at gun point, and continues to do so until this woman asks if she can keep and take care of the infant. Meanwhile, the woman Tsotsi shot is still alive and recovering in the hospital while a manhunt is under way for the baby and the man who stole him. Tsotsi eventually takes in the man who he had beaten and tries to recover the relationships he as with his friends. He goes with these friends back to the residence of the baby's biological parents and ties the father up while searching for things for the baby. When one of Tsotsi's friends is about to kill the father, Tsotsi steps in and shoots his friend dead. Everything leading up to this moment, showing Tsotsi is not just a heartless criminal. After he returns to the woman caring for the infant, she confronts him about stealing the child and asks him to give her the baby so she can return it to them. Tsotsi then leaves with the baby, but asks if he can still come around if he brings the baby back. In a dramatic conclusion, Tsotsi brings the baby back to the residence and is promptly arrested, as the house has been under surveillance since Tsotsi came with his friends.

I think one of the main themes in Tsotsi is survival. It seems that Tsotsi's thug character is a front put up when he was younger in order to survive. Through flashbacks we see the struggles Tsotsi went through, and begin to understand why he didn't just leave the baby in the stolen car when he easily could have. As the story is told, we see Tsotsi's survival instinct when he forces the woman at gun point to breast feed the baby. But as time passes, you can see him actually beginning to care for the woman. It's obvious that whenever Tsotsi shows aggression, it is his method of fighting to survive.

I didn't particularly enjoy Totsi. I didn't really think the movie had a point. I think the only reason it won any awards was because it touched on some rough subject matter, and of course because he eventually did the right thing. Otherwise, I didn't think any of it really left me feeling fulfilled or like a story was told. On the other hand, I did think there was good, admirable cinematography. The shots, such as the one above, seem meticulously crafted to get a certain clean look at Tsotsi's life.