Spoilers ahead!
Rio de Janeiro, 1970. Under a military dictatorship.
It’s sunny at the beach when Eunice notices the helicopter's sounds. Her children are laughing and having a nice day — they just found a small, cute stray dog that they want to take home —, the beach is crowded with people and Eunice is swimming in the sea. On the surface, this could be just another great day in Leblon, 1970, but the first minutes of I’m Still Here tell us right away that this is not the case. Every moment of tenderness, happiness, or normality that happens during the first half hour of the movie is surrounded by this impenetrable, oppressive feeling — bad things are happening to people all around Brazil, and something bad is about to happen to this family as well.
Based on the autobiography of the same name written by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, I’m Still Here tells the story of the Paiva family: Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres for most of the movie, Fernanda Montenegro towards the end,) Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), and their five children. After Rubens is taken by military agents for interrogatory and never returns, Eunice and the children are left behind to deal with a lot by themselves — starting with the excruciating silence regarding Rubens’ whereabouts.
I'm Still Here. Pictured: Fernanda Torres as Eunice, Selton Mello as Rubens, Valentina Herszage as Veroca, Barbara Luz as Nalu. All Rights Reserved
The movie uses its first half hour to let the audience enter the Paiva’s house and become immersed in the 1970’s climate. It shows some good, special things — vinyl records being played here and there, Eunice’s cheese soufflé bringing that cozy happiness, all the dancing at parties with friends and siblings, and all the people that come and go from their home. The house is so full of life, and there’s so much to do and so much laughter and innocent joy above the impending darkness that approaches them. The movie shows some of the bad things from the get-go as well — one of the older siblings is violently inspected by cops along with her friends in a fast but effective scene that tells a lot about the existing dictatorship, which is all over the news, and it's also in the way Rubens and his friends talk, it’s at the beach when the Paivas and their loved ones are taking a photo — the military power is everywhere.
"The public holiday on 20 January 1971 was a day that had no end. It took us a long time to understand why that day existed and why it was the way it was." — Excerpt from Marcelo Rubens Paiva's book I'm Still Here.
Another thing about this first half hour that makes what comes next painful is how it showcases Rubens' relationship with each of his children: playing a game of foosball with Marcelo (Guilherme Silveira as the younger Marcelo, Antonio Saboia as his adult version), “hiding” Babiu’s (Cora Mora, Olivia Torres) tooth at the beach, dancing with Veroca (Valentina Herszage, Maria Manoella) during her farewell party, holding Eliana (Luiza Kosovski, Marjorie Estiano) while the adults talk, and finally, a moment before being taken by the agents, saying goodbye to Nalu (Barbara Luz, Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha) while she dresses his shirt. Selton Mello is resonant as Rubens, this strong, warm figure that irradiates energy to everyone until the curtains of the house are forcibly closed by the military agents and he is taken, and his chemistry with the cast, especially with Torres, is a special part of why this movie works so well.
A few hours after Rubens is gone, Eunice and Eliana are taken for questioning too, and horror unfolds. What we see is gruesome, yes — the screams, the blood washed away, the deprived sleep, and all the violence — but what we don’t see, the things that are only implied and left for imagination, they establish a living nightmare. Torres does heavy, brilliant acting work during this part, and when Eunice is released after days of torture, during her first shower after prison — that’s when Torres starts hitting all the right notes scene after scene in a mesmerizing and devastating way.
Eunice has a lot to deal with: the captors are denying Rubens’ prison, they refuse to acknowledge what was done to him and where he is; the bank won’t let Eunice withdraw some money from his account to her despair — not only does she has five children to raise, but the bills won’t stop coming. There is also Zezé (Pri Helena), the Paiva’s housekeeper who takes care of the children after Eunice and Rubens are taken; it’s been months since her last payment, and Eunice can’t afford her services anymore. Then Pimpão, the little dog adopted when the movie started, dies, and one afternoon Eunice is hit by the truth: Rubens is not returning.
One of the family friends confirms it: he’s dead, and their everyday life is now in the past. This gives space for Torres to perform some of the best scenes of the movie, as this self-contained woman who is deeply hurt and suffering in silence, so she can’t speak freely; her eyes tell the whole story. Fernanda Torres’ tour de force performance is one for the ages, the best and most magnetic of the year, and Eunice’s quiet fury and gentle fierceness sustain this movie until the last minute when she’s played by Torres’ mother Fernanda Montenegro in a devastating, unforgettable scene led by an actress with a thorough command of her abilities.
I'm Still Here. Pictured: Fernanda Torres as Eunice. All Rights Reserved
Once Veroca returns from Europe, almost everything is settled: they no longer have a housekeeper, their house was sold, and they are moving to São Paulo. The children don’t take the news very well; it’s worth mentioning that some of them still hope their father is returning. After all, Eunice doesn’t tell them right away that she knows Rubens is dead. This is important, by the way. Rubens didn’t tell Eunice about the letters because he didn’t want to hurt Eunice and the children. Eunice hides the unpleasant truths from the children — she doesn’t talk about the time she was tortured and kept away from home, and she doesn’t about what happened to Rubens. And isn’t this how some of us treat not only this dark time of our country but also brutal parts of our History? The conversations are avoided, there’s hope everything will be forgotten soon — and there’s so much silence.
If anything, I’m Still Here is a tale of the importance of memory — we need to remember what happened, and this past must be respected — but also about the importance of the little things that can trigger memory, like old photographs, videotapes, letters, and even official documents, they all play a part here, and their presence throughout the movie reinforces the central role of memory when it comes to going through dark times.
I'm Still Here. Pictured: Fernanda Torres as Eunice, Luiza Kosovski as Eliana, Guilherme Silveira as Marcelo, Cora Mora as Babiu, Valentina Herszage as Veroca, Barbara Luz as Nalu. All Rights Reserved
Directed by Walter Salles, with a screenplay by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, I’m Still Here earned a righteous place in the spotlight during this awards season as this great, gut-wrenching drama — especially after a historic Golden Globes win for Fernanda Torres. It’s lovely that Torres and this movie also received Oscars nominations, sort of recreating the 1999 scenario with Montenegro and Salles’ Central Station. One nice thing about the visibility this has been getting is how it can be a gateway to other Brazilian or Latin American movies, related or not to dictatorships occurred during the Cold War — looking only to Torres’ diverse filmography, Bruno Barreto’s Four Days in September (1997), Eduardo Coutinho’s Playing (2007), and Jorge Furtado’s Basic Sanitation, the Movie (2007) are fine recommendations that go from political drama to comedy crowd-pleaser.
Another interesting thing about it is the reflection of how much fight it takes to find justice and to fight injustices, and how easy it is for the tide to turn and what we call democracy to be lost. Eunice had to fight so much for the acknowledgment of Rubens’ death. There’s a scene just after Eunice gets Rubens’ death certificate in which a reporter asks Eunice something along the lines of “doesn't the government have more urgent things to do than remediate the past?” and the answer is no. After its last scene, the movie tells us that the military force confessed to murdering Rubens decades later; yet, none of them were arrested for what they did. Rubens Paiva was a former congressman at the time of his abduction, the Paiva family had some contacts and some influence; yet, all of this happened to them. In this sense, I'm Still Here is an invitation to think about the many other families that lived similar stories during this military dictatorship, facing similar horrors and similar endings — it might be as well a way to remember all these victims, may they never be forgotten.
I'm Still Here is available in Brazil, the US, UK and Irish cinemas, and many other countries in Europe and Latin America.
Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts about the movie, and thanks for reading!
