Producers: Maria Carlota Bruno, Rodrigo Teixeira and Martine de Clermont-Tonnerre Director: Walter Salles Screenplay: Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega Cast: Fernanda Torres, Fernanda Montenegro, Selton Mello, Valentina Herszage, Luiza Kosovski, Maria Manoella, Marjorie Estiano, Bárbara Luz, Cora Mora, Pri Helena, Gabriele Carneiro da Cunha, Olivia Torres, Guilherme Silveira, Antonio Saboia, Dan Stuhlbach, Thelmo Fernandes, Luiz Bertazzo, Humberto Carrão, Maeve Jinkings, Caio Horowicz, Camila Márdila, Charles Fricks, Luana Nastas, Isadora Ruppert, Daniel Dantas, Maitê Padilha and Carla Ribas Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Grade: B+
The fate of those who disappeared under South American military dictatorships has already generated one Oscar-winner, Argentina’s “The Official Story” (1985). Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” may well be the second.
It focuses on a single case, that of Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), who was taken from his home in Rio de Janeiro in January, 1971, supposedly for questioning about his involvement in leftist politics. A trained civil engineer, he’d served for two years as a parliamentary member of the Brazilian Labor Party when a military coup occurred in 1964. After going into self-exile for a time, he returned to Brazil and settled down with his family, his wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) and his five children—daughters Vera (Valentina Herszage), Eliana (Luiza Kosovski), Nalu (Bárbara Luz) and Maria (Cora Mora), and son Marcelo (Guilherme Silveira).
The first portion of Salles’ film emphasizes the happy life of the family, even as the dictatorship remained in place. That’s explained in part by the fact that the script by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega is based on a 2015 memoir by Paiva’s son Marcelo. But it undoubtedly also reflects director Salles’ own recollections: as an adolescent he spent time with the Paivas, and remembers the experience fondly; he portrays genial dinners and get-togethers with streams of friends and acquaintances, most of whom shared Rubens’ political views. The conversations occasionally veer into touchy territory, but controversial observations are muted. Meanwhile the youngsters’ play at the beach—sometimes captured in home movies taken by Vera—is carefree. The affection in the household is obvious, despite the inevitable sibling squabbling.
Juntas are always concerned about dissidents, but in 1971 the Brazilian generals were especially on edge; an ambassador had recently been kidnapped, and roadblocks were set up to apprehend anyone who looked suspicious. In fact, Vera and her friends had recently been stopped at one after a night on the town. That incident was unsettling, but the arrival of three men to pick up Rubens was genuinely terrifying. To make matters worse, Eunice and Eliana were also taken for questioning, and though the girl was quickly released, Eunice was kept in detention for twelve days and repeatedly pressured to identify people her husband might have been involved with. Paiva himself disappeared into the system.
The rest of the film focuses on Eunice’s decades-long search for information on her husband’s whereabouts. Most is devoted to the immediate aftermath, from Eunice’s return home to take a long shower and wash off the grime of the gloomy prison stay, through her initial futile attempts to discover her husband’s fate, to years of endeavoring to keep his arrest in the public’s mind and encouraging friends to do whatever they could to uncover the truth. She earns a law degree and wages a persistent campaign for the truth about the disappeared to be brought to light even after the end of the dictatorship in 1985, in particular dismissing government claims that Paiva had been freed by insurgents shortly after his arrest. The script pushes ahead first to 1996 and then to 2014, as the walls of official deception fall and the murder of her husband by the junta is finally acknowledged.
The depiction of Eunice’s public career is accompanied by the portrayal of her as matriarch, keeping the family together as the years of Rubens’ absence go on interminably. By the close she, the children and their families have once again emerged as a gregarious, loving clan, and Eunice, now confined to a wheelchair and suffering from Alzheimer’s, is shown expressing a flicker of recognition as she sees an image of Rubens on television in a report on those who resisted the dictatorship and paid the ultimate price.
Eunice is played in that final sequence by iconic actress Fernanda Montenegro, but it is her daughter, Torres, who carries the film as the character in her younger years. It’s a towering performance that captures the steely resolve of the wife and mother as she struggles to keep the family together and continue her search for the facts first under the ruthless eyes of an authoritarian regime and then in a restored democracy in which she must fend off suggestions that perhaps it would be best to forget the past and concentrate on the future. There are moments when she gives way to understandable rage—as when she pounds on the windows of a car posted outside the house to keep watch on her and the children—but for the most part she portrays Eunice with a restraint that nonetheless intimates the boiling anger inside. The rest of the cast is excellent, whether those playing her children or the sinister men who arrest Rubens and staff the prison. Mello, as the husband involved in political matters he keeps from her in an effort to keep the family safe, makes his brief first-act role count; it is, after all, Eunice’s devotion to him and what he represented that drives her actions.
In its stateliness “I’m Still Here,” in telling this harrowing story of a family living under the darkness of dictatorship, mirrors the patience Eunice Paiva showed in seeking justice; Salles and editor Affonso Gonçalves are unafraid of somber slowness, which in some cases—the interrogation sequences, for example—creates almost unbearable tension. Adrian Teijido’s cinematography aims for a gritty look that reflects the period—from the seventies onward—with the snatches of home movies adding to the roughness and the production design (Carlos Conti) and costumes (Cláudia Kopke) adding to the authentic feel. Warren Ellis’ score, with its emphasis on piano and strings, adds a plaintive mood while adding to the suspense or jubilation as the narrative demands.
Given that Brazil slipped back into authoritarian rule with the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2019, a man who actually looked back with favor on the dictatorship and even tried to retain his hold on power after he lost a reelection bid—by a small margin—in 2023, the message that Salles’ film sends to his own country about political choices is especially potent. The film presents a powerful indictment of dictatorial rule through a compelling portrait of how a brutal regime’s victimization of a single family became an inspiring story of resilience and resistance.