Winners:
1998 Berlin Film Festival Best Film Golden Bear Award Best Actress
1998 Global Award Best Foreign Language Film
1998 American Film Critics Association Best Foreign Language Film 1.
Film Overview
1. Film Theme
Dora - A Valet at Central Station A single middle-aged woman who believes in living. People who come and go send her all kinds of thoughts and infinite blessings to her family and lover, but she often returns with indifference and deceit, and she can't even resist the temptation of money. She abducts and sells organs to Joshua, a boy who had just lost his mother and was living in Central Station. Sales group. After suffering from guilt, he takes risks to rescue Joshua; and driven by motherhood, he accompanies Joshua to find a father he has never met.
The more desolate the future, the more difficult the situation, the two from the initial hostility, mutual support to like mother and son. After several twists and turns, she finally found Joshua's two older brothers, and Dora left sadly.
Joshua's journey to find his father is Dora's journey of redemption. Motherhood drives Dora to give, to awaken Dora's kindness and love instinct, and then to forgive her father. freed himself. Joshua and Dora rescued each other and experienced the truth, goodness and beauty of human nature.
2. Contents of the video,
Rio de Janeiro Central Station in Brazil, people from all over the country flocking to Rio to seek life are bustling with people. Even on the brink of poverty, they are still optimistic and full of enthusiasm and hope for the future. Turned into words by Dora's hand, Dora kills people's hope with indifference, ruthlessness, and deceit.
Anna took her son Joshua and asked Dora to write to Joshua's missing father, Jesus. Unexpectedly, before the letter was finished, Anna was run over by the bus for waiting for Joshua to pick up the top. Joshua had been living in the station since then, and Joshua, who had nowhere to go, decided to ask Dora to return the letter to his father. Expand entanglement.
Dora, who had no mercy on Joshua, took Joshua home, but sold him to an organ trafficking group the next day, and bought half of the profit for one thousand yuan to buy a coveted TV. Dora's friends disapprove of what she did, and scolded her for "there is always a limit to everything". Dora tossed around all night for her guilt, and rescued Joshua alone the next day. In order to make up for the debt, Dora decides to send Joshua to "Bongjisu" to find her father. Embark on a journey of friction, conflict, and distress.
Dora originally left a sum of money in Joshua's backpack while Joshua was drunk and asleep. Unexpectedly, when the bus left, Dora found that Joshua also got off the bus, and the backpack was still in the car! The penniless two were lucky enough to meet a truck driver who was a family from all over the world. Dora thought she would meet the "savior" of her life, but after she took the initiative to reveal her affection, the truck driver was afraid of running away. Dora used the only remaining watch as a fare to Bangjisu, and found Jesus' home successfully - but Jesus had already moved! The two, who were originally full of joy, were unbearably hopeless and lost to hunger. Finally, a conflict broke out. Dora rebuked Joshua "your parents should not have given birth to you"; and referred to it as a "doomsday" in her life! Joshua fled in anger and drowned in the sea of ceremonies; Dora searched in panic and called to Joshua with a hoarse voice. It was the climax of the ceremonial flames and the passion of the crowd, and Dora finally fell to the ground.
At dawn, Dora found herself lying in Joshua's arms, the two smiled at each other, and Dora's eyes filled with tears. Sitting in the mountains and running out of water, Joshua came up with a whim, and he shouted at the village fair to write a letter to the valet, leaving a message to the Lord, Dora, to resume her old business. Earning a lot of money, Joshua bought Dora a dress. When they found Jesus' residence again, but Jesus had already disappeared, Dora told the sad Joshua, "I really want to take you home," and took Joshua's hand on the way home.
At the waiting station, he met Jesus' son, Joshua's half-brother. Dora read the letter that Jesus sent back from Rio. It turned out that Jesus loved Anna deeply and went to Rio to find Anna. Dora finally believed that Jesus and Joshua were as good as they imagined!
Early the next morning, Dora wore the dress Joshua bought for her, put on lipstick, left Anna's letter to Jesus, and returned to Rio alone. At the station she writes to Joshua, she misses her father, she misses everything….
2. Features of the film
1. Writing and directing techniques
Natural, plain, undoubtedly the style of director Walter Salles. In order to emphasize the persuasiveness of the actors, Joshua in the film is the shoe shine boy at the station that he found. In the style of not showing off camera skills and deliberately making things mysterious, the focus is on the performance of the actors to bring out the development of the plot. The heroine's introverted, extroverted acting skills, and the life-like performance of the little male lead, the plot is fastened in one go, with deep meaning in the smoothness, delicate in the compactness, profoundly touching and thought-provoking.
2. Introduction to the moral of the plot
1. The national character of short-sighted speculation
. However, they describe Brazilians as focusing only on the present, rampant, reckless, and grasping the present. The young man in the film grabbed the beauty supplies at the station stall and ran away, and the soldier was lynched and shot to death, which shows his short-sightedness and blindness. The heroine Dora is also a typical example. She retired from the teaching position, she has a place to live and has a good skill, but seeing the money, she seizes the present and sells Joshua regardless of the consequences. After suffering from conscience, she struggled to rescue.
2. The Virgin and Son pointed out
that 90% of the Catholics in Brazil are Catholics. In the film, you can see the in-depth life and influence of religion, such as the naming of Joshua’s father and brother, the truck driver who preaches the gospel, religious portrait totems, chants, and rituals activities etc. In particular, the frequently-appearing statues of the Virgin and the Son of God appear on the central station, on the walls of Dora's house, and in the ceremonies.
The film begins with Anna holding Joshua's hand. After Anna's death, Dora took Joshua to find her father. After hitting a nail twice, Dora sincerely stated that she would bring Joshua home, and Dora took Joshua's hand on the way home. , echoing the image of the Virgin and Child! It symbolizes Dora's promotion from a woman to a mother's role. It also symbolizes Dora's transformation from a liar and human trafficker. After the arduous process of washing away her sins and atonement with actions, she has love because of her giving, and her soul is improved because of love. Holy as the Virgin Mary.
3 From ruthless to sentient
Dora is accustomed to face the joys, sorrows, and even death of the world who come and go to her for help with indifference and ruthlessness! And arbitrarily shelving or tearing up people's hopes with mood, anger and prejudice.
When she wrote the letter in the village center, her expression danced with the mood of the seeker. After returning to the sojourn, she stopped Joshua from discarding the letter and mailed the letter the next day. Dora's transformation lies in the fact that after a long journey, she has realized how many hardworking people who cannot read and write must exchange their joys and sorrows through valet letter writers, and aggregation and fate may be tied to an inconspicuous letter. So in the car that was sadly returning to Rio, when Dora wrote to Joshua "I haven't written a letter for a long time...", she couldn't help but burst into tears! Dora finally understands that letters are fate and emotional sustenance. From ruthless to affectionate, Dora has gone through deeply.
4 From the distortion of growth to the release of the past
Dora's indifference, the mocking, filtering, and discarding of letters, is due to her distrust of human nature - all because of her father who was alcoholic and uncaring for her mother. Dora left her father at the age of thirteen, and the last time she saw her alcoholic father many years later, he didn't recognize her, and he despised her! From then on, she believes that all fathers in the world are the same. They drink alcohol and beat their wives, go out to play tricks, mess with flowers, and abandon their wives and children.
She shelved Anna's letter to Jesus because she had the prejudice of "saving" women, and she was even more suspicious of Joshua's father. It was not until she read the letter that Jesus asked someone to write to Anna that she realized that Anna had failed Jesus and that Jesus had been waiting for her for nine years. When she wrote to Joshua, she finally admitted that Joshua's father was as good as he imagined; Dora also thought about the time when her father who drove the train made her play the whistle. Dora misses her father, and she frees herself from the past.
Participation and epilogue
director Walter Salles, undoubtedly, looks at the "evil" of life with a magnanimous mind and an understanding perspective - Dora's betrayal, abduction, fraud, and even stealing the grocery store during the trip. His behavior, he has to deal with the distortion of growth and human nature has to deal with.
He focused on Dora's redemption to return to herself - the promotion of truth, goodness and beauty. During the difficult journey, Dora and Joshua established a friendship in adversity; and the mother-son relationship beyond blood, love and dedication, let Dora be redeemed! At the end of the journey, Dora witnessed the true love that transcended time and space, reminding her of the beauty that her father also brought her, and the beauty released her from the emotional prison that had been imprisoned for many years. Dora's tears, with love, giving, understanding and forgiveness.
Life is so beautiful and worth remembering, because once loved and paid! Even if it is not beautiful, human nature is surpassed because of understanding and forgiveness!
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Walter. "Central Station (Central do Brasil)" directed by Walter Salles is a live-action portrait of the hard life of the Brazilian people. The redemption drama of the dust of the soul.
This film, which has both documentary and sensational qualities, stands at the bottom of the world and pursues the dreams and hopes of life. Although it is rough and small, it is moving. The key is that the director did not deliberately create a castle in the air, all dreams are close to the pulse and breath of mortals, and the rich realistic colors make the resulting dramatic tension more convincing.
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Just because they are mortal blood and tears, the hero and heroine have fatal flaws and weaknesses. The heroine Dora (played by Fernanda Montenegro) writes letters to the illiterate at the station. It was originally a kind deed of love, but she can make money from other people. The teacher, even she was tempted to use the money from selling children to buy TV, accompanied the orphan Josue (played by Vincius de Oliveira) on this journey to find his father, and wanted to play the little boy all the way.
The director let us see Dora's "badness" from the very beginning, and then through the plot twists, her beauty, kindness and conscience were gradually recovered. This is a very powerful audience psychology, because from bad to good, the audience is easy to sympathize, and from good to bad, people frown and shake their heads.
What's more, Dora is very lonely. When she meets a truck driver who she can talk to, she wants to catch the short spring, but the dream of spring doesn't last long, and it soon shatters. The scene of her being abandoned, we can hardly laugh at her, some are just sympathy, because the sadness of people lies in not knowing their own weight, but the audience knows, understands and understands, so the audience sympathizes.
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As for the little boy Josue's journey to find his father, on the surface, it is a family story of a child who never knew his father. Whether it is the boy's dream, or the sadness of the child's brother's father's disappearance when he wakes up, all the tragic encounters, It is all about the severe gap between urban and rural living standards, and the helplessness of working people at the mercy of the god of fate.
Walter. Through a life story that can be seen from time to time in the city, Salles allows us to directly see the world of misery in Brazil. Sometimes movies are powerless to shake the status quo. Maybe it's quietly implanted in people's hearts.
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