Central Station

            Central Station is about an older woman, Dora, who works in central station as a letter writer for illiterate people. A young boy, Josue, and his mother come in almost everyday to write to Josue’s father whom he has never met. One day, his mother gets hit by a bus and dies. He has nowhere to go so he stays in central station. Dora decides to buy him a train ticket and take him home with her. At her house, he finds a drawer full of unsent letters that she has written, including the ones to his father. Dora ends up selling Josue to a couple that traffics children and with the money buys a television. Her friend makes her feel guilty about it so she steals him back and runs away. She decides to take the trip with him to find his father, but later decides to leave him on a bus and slips money into his backpack. He wakes up before the bus leaves and gets off, forgetting his backpack. They decide to hitch a ride from a truck driver. Josue tells the truck driver that he wants to be a truck driver when he is older. At a stop, Dora tries to hit on the driver, which drives him away, leaving Dora and Josue there. Dora and Josue fight on and off as they visit other cities. Dora gets a job for one night writing letters to saints for the town’s people. They finally reach the town where Josue’s father is supposed to be, but he is not there, but he does get to meet his half-brothers. Dora leaves to go back home and decides to leave Josue with his brothers. As the bus drives away, Josue tries to chase after her.

            The theme of this movie is religion. There is not many signs of religion in central station, but as they get further away from there, there are more signs of it. The trucker they meet is very religious. In one of the last towns they visit, they have a town wide worshiping party. When Dora is writing letters in the town, the people ask her to send letters to the saints instead of to people.

            I liked the storyline to this movie, but I was not a fan of the characters. Dora is a selfish, grumpy woman so I did not understand why she bothered to take Josue. It made sense when she dropped him off for him to get sold so that she could get money out of it, but she keeps helping him and keeps regretting it and it felt like an unending cycle.