The film is very famous, and won the Golden Bear Award and the Best Actress Award at the 48th Golden Berlin Film Festival. But last night, when I re-watched it, it didn't seem to be the first time I saw it like that, maybe I didn't know it.
At Rio de Janeiro's Central Station, the retired and lonely Dora (Brazilian national treasure actress Fernanda Montenegro) writes letters to make ends meet. But she would tear up all the unpleasant letters and not send them, and even read the contents of the letters openly for fun.
The appearance of the young boy Joshua (Venneses Di Oliveira, chosen by the director from 1,000 shoe shine boys) begins a journey of re-acquaintance with life – Joshua is eager to meet her father, whom she has never met in the distance, and constantly writes to him.
The boy's mother's unexpected car accident leads Dora to decide to accompany Joshua to the northeast to find her father. In Joshua's eyes, even though his father was very strange, he always spoke proudly of his father. And Dora also has a painful past with her father. In joshua's search for her father, Dora's frozen heart slowly warms up because of the past...
This is a typical road movie, two people searching, in the process of searching, two people who originally did not have a common language from exclusion to dependence, it should be noted that Dora once sold Joshua to a trafficker, but the uneasiness of conscience made her sneak out of the child, so she embarked on a road that was difficult for her to have a good ending, but because what she was doing was probably the most worthwhile thing in her life, so she had no other distractions.
The ending of the film may be guessable, the child's father has not been found, but the child has a relatively unborn home after all, Dora quietly leaves in the morning light, and then the child runs out of his half-brother's house and chases him, and at that moment, he grows up.
I think what the film involves outside the story is even more noteworthy: we go deep into the Brazilian countryside in this "road movie", witnessing the bitter reality of millions of people leaving their homes and relatives to make a living in a foreign land, the vast southern hemisphere is constantly turning under the camera, the noisy city, the withered wasteland rushing past in front of us, and the film seems to be a dream of clouds and shadows.
Joshua, obsessively searching for his father, clings to a beautiful dream that his father is a tall and burly man, and finding him means finding happiness.
Dora, who is frustrated by the tribulations of life, is like a sharp knife that punctures bubbles, in the adult world, there is no dream, followed by hope, it must be an unbearable despair. But two people search together, like the two poles of life: innocence and old age, joy and sorrow, led by a seemingly endless road to an unknown end.
Another interesting point is the names of the boys and their families in the film, Joshua, Moses, Isaiah, and the father simply calls Jesus, at the beginning of the film.
The first words dictated by the mother of the child to Dora, "Jesus, knowing you is my greatest misfortune!" So there is a special meaning, religion, this magical thing is a love-hate thing in the hearts of South Americans, go to the Uruguayan movie "The Pope's Toilet" to understand.
But in this film, the name of the road may hide such a proposition about redemption - Dora and Joshua, who is who is the redeemer? Who is directing the direction of another person's rebirth? In the Bible, Jehovah, the assistant of Moses, said, "My servant Moses is dead, and now you will rise up and cross the Jordan River with the people to the place where I have given to the Israelites." ”
It was this prophet named Joshua who led the Israelites back to their homeland and restored their beautiful homeland. After years of political turmoil and economic crisis, Brazil is also silently looking forward to getting out of suffering and finding a journey to happiness again.
"Grand Central Station" may hint at this meaning: "The boy will look for his father, and the old woman will find her home." And this country, look for its roots. ”
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