Three Recent Brazilian Films: A Review

Brazilian cinema is one of the most active and widely respected in Latin America, and several Brazilian directors such as Hector Babenco, Walter Salles and Carlos Diegues have reputations that transcend the boundaries of their country. The Cinema Novo movement of the 1960s-1980s was a particularly productive era in Brazilian film-making (Foster 1999). Of that productivity, much was generated by government funding through Embrafilme, the national film institute. In an early action of his new government, President Fernando Collor de Mello closed Embrafilme, which led directly to a near complete cessation of national film production in the early 1990's. Following Collor de Mello's impeachment, funding for Embrafilme was renewed, and private funding sources were developed, both of which allowed the Brazilian film industry to reestablish itself (Nagib 2003). Thus, since the late 1990's several highly regarded Brazilian films have been distributed internationally and are available in the United States on cassette or DVD with English subtitles.

Some of those films have potential for use in geography and or Latin American studies courses. This essay provides a brief review of three such films, Central Station (Central do Brasil) (1998), directed by Walter Salles, Orfeu (1999) directed by Carlos Diegues, and City of God (Cidade de Deus) (2002) directed by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund. Central Station is a road film shot in Rio de Janeiro and the sertão of northeast Brazil. The other two films are set entirely in Rio. All three films were selected to represent Brazil in the Academy Award Best Foreign Film category, and Central Station was one of the five nominees for that Oscar. City of God was nominated for four other Academy Awards and Central Station for one.¹ Orfeu was less well received by reviewers in the United States and elsewhere than the other films. Nevertheless, it is entertaining and reveals interesting and sometimes subtle aspects of Brazilian urban life and culture.

Central Station

Dora, the female lead in Central Station, is an elderly former school teacher who ekes out a living as a letter writer in Rio's central railroad station. She encounters Josué, a friendless boy whose mother has been killed in a traffic accident. After initially rejecting Josué and selling him to what may be a human organ harvesting organization, Dora agrees to help him find his father, Jesús, whose last known address is Bom Jesus do Norte in the sertão. Jesús never appears, but at the end of the film Josué encounters two half-brothers with whom he settles. Dora, her mission accomplished and her good faith restored, is last seen on a bus, presumably on her way back to Rio.

The first third of Central Station takes place in the gritty working-class sections of central and eastern Rio, primarily in the railroad station where Dora works and the apartment near the railroad tracks where she lives. The remainder of the film is shot at various unidentified points in northeast Brazil which feature majestic sertão landscapes. Film reviewers have noted that Walter Salles has drawn a stark contrast between the urban and rural scenes in Central Station (Shaw 2003). The railroad station is chaotic and brutal. Thousands of commuters and travelers pass through the station each day and the film reflects this movement. None of the famous landmarks of Rio are shown; instead, the camera focuses on the industrial landscapes scattered along the railroad tracks and the seedy apartments where Dora and her friends live. Sertão landscapes, on the other hand, are portrayed as serene, and the people as friendly and helpful. This romanticism of the sertão contrasts with the wild scenery and violent character of the people that characterizes many of the Cinema Novo films that were set in northeastern Brazil.

The fictitious Bom Jesus do Norte is the site of a pilgrimage that features prominently in the film.² The pilgrimage shots show many things that are...