In a superb film that deals with a physical journey by rail, bus and truck, it seems appropriate that director Walter Salles should have found his juvenile star in Rio de Janiero's airport. Shoeshine boy Vinicius de Oliveira approached Salles for lunch money and ended up being cast as nine-year-old Josue whose mother is killed by a bus leaving Rio's central train station after they pay the bitter Dora (Fernanda Montenegra) to write a conciliatory letter to the father Josue has never met.

For mostly selfish reasons, Dora agrees to take the boy to find his father in the remote northeast, but this happens after she first sells him to a questionable adoption agency to buy herself a color TV.  When she realizes he might be killed to sell his organs on the black market she steals him back and goes on the lam with the furious child. 

And so begins a remarkable road trip where they journey not only through the unfamiliar terrain but into their own souls. In scenes of exacting emotional honesty, angry Josue and cynical Dora move from fierce exchanges to opening up to each other.  Elderly Dora travels from greed to generosity, from emptiness to embracing love. And the distraught child moves beyond betrayal and grief to caring for his destitute and substitute mother.

Central Station certainly exemplifies the Road Trip!: Moving with the Spirit theme. In fact, by the time the traveling twosome arrive at a religious pilgrimage it looks Felliniesque, just as Montenegra's Dora is reminiscent of Fellini's magnificent actress wife, Giuiletta Masina in yet another road movie, La Strada.  Avoiding mushy sentimentality, director Salles has turned in a deeply felt voyage into the human heart and spirit. 

Film essay by Gerri Pare.  Gerri Pare is the film critic for the U.S. Catholic Conference's Office of Film and Broadcasting. 

Discussion Panelists: Roberto Colon, Michael Mata, Cecilia Gonzalez-Andrieu

Central Station screening
Sunday, November 12, 9:00 pm