In the opening scenes of Central Station, colorful crowds of Brazilians stream into and out of a Rio de Janeiro train, pushing through doors and windows. You're immediately pulled into the brutal vitality of a nation in motion, setting the tone for a picturesque road movie that charts Brazil's renaissance in a little boy's search for his father and an old woman's emotional reawakening. When we first meet Dora (Fernanda Montenegro), this frozen-hearted, sour-faced woman is the epitome of immobility: day after day, she sits in the train station selling her letter-writing skills to all comers, but often doesn't bother to mail these precious messages. When a woman who's paid Dora to write a pleading note to her son's long-missing dad gets run over by a bus, the child, Josue (Vinicius de Oliveira), is up for grabs. (The summary execution of a thieving street kid--in longshot--underscores the seriousness of this waif's plight.) After an abortive attempt to sell Josue for a new TV, the aspiring couch potato finds herself reluctantly propelled into an occasionally Fellini-esque odyssey through the hinterlands of Brazil's sertäo, where Dora and her sidekick find unexpected faith and family. Former documentary filmmaker Walter Salles (Foreign Land) mixes magic with realism in his appreciation of striking faces and places, but Central Station is primarily fueled by the tough/tender performances of Montenegro, Brazil's Judy Dench, and de Oliveira, an airport shoeshine boy Salles cast over 1,500 other hopefuls. (Montenegro was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, and Central Station was in the running for Best Foreign Language Film.) No cloyingly cute child-star, de Oliveira plays Josue as a bracingly idiosyncratic brat. And watching Dora's face and soul slowly, unwillingly unclench as she gets back in motion--and emotion--is potent pleasure, even if Salles's trip does dead-end in soap opera as his Brazilian pilgrim's progress winds down.–Kathleen Murphy

The landscape looks like the surface of the moon. Set in Brazil's Maranhão desert, House of Sand follows three generations of women, from 1910 to 1969, as they eke out a living from this hostile environment. Oafish Vasco (director Ruy Guerra) brings pregnant wife Áurea (Fernanda Torres) and her mother, Dona Maria (Fernanda Montenegro, Central Station), from the city to make a new start. Shortly after they arrive, fate takes him out of the picture. Mother and daughter muddle through with the help of slave descendents. Wary at first, Massu (Seu Jorge, City of God) takes a particular shine to the duo. The story then skips ahead to 1919, when an escape route materializes. There will be two more shifts in time. By 1942, Áurea's daughter, Maria (Torres), has grown into impetuous womanhood, while Áurea (Montenegro) and Massu (Luiz Melodia) have settled into middle age. In the final section, set during the year of the first lunar landing, Áurea (Montenegro) is around the same age as her mother at the start of the film. With the exception of Camilla Facundes as nine-year-old Maria, Torres and her real-life mother assume every female role. What does it all mean? Andrucha Waddington (Me You Them) doesn't burden his enigmatic epic with a singular message, but those who appreciate dust-swept dramas like Woman in the Dunes and Walkabout aren't likely to hold it against him. The point seems to be that the human–especially the female–capacity for survival knows no bounds. –Kathleen C. Fennessy

Many movies have tried to weave a web of coincidences and quirky characters into a satisfying tale of love, but few of them succeed. Bossa Nova, directed with a deft touch and acted with simplicity and genuine charm, pulls it off. Mary Ann (Amy Irving) is an American teaching English in Rio de Janeiro; her husband died years before and she has given up on love. Lawyer Pedro (Antonio Fagundes) is in the middle of a sticky divorce and wants his wife back, but when he sees Mary Ann in the hallway outside her language school, he is instantly smitten and starts taking her class. Meanwhile, another student of Mary Ann's is having an affair over the Internet; Pedro's brother falls in love with Pedro's headstrong new intern; and there's the soccer star who's taking lessons from Mary Ann so that he can join a team in Manchester. Bossa Nova has a relaxed, smooth flow, not unlike the music it's named after. The ways the characters' lives start to interlock would be preposterous if it weren't so gracefully developed--every crossed path seems unforced and natural. The romance manages to be sweet and realistic, a mixture of swooning and melancholy. Irving and Fagundes are wonderful, particularly because they aren't callow youngsters but people who've experienced some hard knocks and yet continue on. All in all, a delight. –Bret Fetzer