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.