REIMAGINING THE NATION

IDENTITY AND BELONGING IN CENTRAL DO BRASIL

Abstract

This article examines Walter Salles’ Central do Brasil (1998) as an allegory of Brazil’s search for national identity. Drawing on Benedict Anderson’s concept of imagined communities (1983), the analysis explores how the film constructs an image of Brazil through its portrayal of displacement, belonging, and the rediscovery of collective roots. The narrative of Dora and Josué — two characters whose physical and emotional journeys mirror the nation’s own trajectory of loss and recovery — reflects a symbolic process of re-identification after decades of political and cultural fragmentation. Through its juxtaposition of the chaotic urban setting and the spiritualized rural landscape, Central do Brasil reimagines the nation as a shared emotional space rather than a fixed geographic or political entity. The article argues that Salles’ film reaffirms cinema’s role as a medium of national self-recognition, projecting a vision of Brazil as both fractured and united by its search for meaning, belonging, and humanity.