Film Review: "I'm Still Here"
Walter Salles' new film is a searing and deeply poignant story about surviving loss, tragedy, and authoritarian rule.
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Warning: Full spoilers for the film follow.
From the very first scene of I’m Still Here, it’s clear that the Brazil of the 1970s is a country of contradictions. As the film opens, Fernanda Torres’ Eunica Paiva is drifting in the balmy waters off Rio de Janeiro. It’s a seemingly calm reverie, but it is disturbed by the sight and sound of military aircraft hovering overhead. This sets up a narrative pattern that the film will utilize to remarkable effect, as Eunice’s life of domestic tranquility and love is torn apart, leaving her and her children to try to pick up the pieces and forge some kind of a future.
Roughly the first film explores the calm and idyllic family life of Eunice and her family: days spent on the beach, dinner parties with friends and family, adopting a stray dog and making sure that it’s clean enough to sleep inside. All the while, however, there are rumblings of something far more sinister at work. Foreign diplomats are kidnapped, armored vehicles full of soldiers move through the streets of Rio, and there are hushed conversations between Eunice’s husband Rubens (Selton Mello) and their activist friends.
It all comes crashing down one fateful day in 1971 when agents of the state come to their house and take Rubens away for questioning regarding his activities as both a politician and a secret activist. Husband and wife share one last meaningful look as he’s taken away, almost as if they both know that this is the last time that they’ll see one another. Not long afterward both Eunice and her daughter are taken by the police, where they are subjected to questioning and, in Eunice’s case, psychological torture. Even though Eunice is ultimately freed, her time being tortured by the regime leaves deep scars, exacerbated by the fact that she never sees Rubens away and the government refuses to admit anything about his whereabouts or even that they have him in custody.
The interrogation/torture scenes are difficult to watch, and this is as it should be. It’s clear that the dictatorship isn’t going to be happy until they have either forced Eunice to betray her husband, their friends, and even their own daughter or intimidated her to such a degree that she will never dare to try to resist them. As viewers we are immersed in this terrifying and uncertain world, and while there is a part of our mind that knows she will finally be set free, the moments up to then are ones of tension and terror and uncertainty.
It feels inadequate to say that Fernanda Torres is nothing short of visionary in the role of Eunice, but that’s the only way I can describe what is one of the most astounding and moving performances of 2024. Through all of the torture that she experiences at the hands of the dictatorship, despite the fact that they keep her imprisoned and separated from her children in squalid conditions, she never gives in to their demands, never gives them the incriminating information they so desperately seek. At the same time, hers is the kind of strength that doesn’t make a display of itself. Instead it’s there in the way that she looks at her children and the way that she tries to make their lives as peaceful as possible even if, at times, the cracks in her composure can’t help but show as the months pass and their loved one remains disappeared.
An ache suffuses the latter part of the film, the pain and anguish of never really knowing the fate of your loved one, since the government refuses to acknowledge what they did or even that they did anything. The procuring of the death certificate does at least give some measure of closure. They may never be able to mourn the body of the father and husband that they loved so much and who brought so much joy to their lives, but they can at least have an acknowledgment that he existed and that, because of the actions of the government, he was taken away from them.
As with so many other films these days, it’s impossible not to live in the United States and see glimmers of our future in the Brazil of the 1970s. We might not be under a military dictatorship yet, but it’s clear that Trump and his allies are trying to steer us in that direction, attempting to still in those of us who oppose their policies a fear that, if we step too much out of line, that they will bring the entire weight of the government and the law enforcement apparatus crashing down. And, because the film is so adept at showing daily life under a dictatorship–repeatedly juxtaposing scenes of domestic harmony with the sight of tanks and armed soldiers in the streets–it demonstrates just how easy it is to become accustomed to the extraordinary and the terrifying. As the story of the Paivas demonstrates, however, everything can change in a heartbeat, leaving behind those who have to pick up the pieces and seek justice as best they can.
In one of the most powerful moments in the film, just when Eunice holds the evidence that her husband was murdered by the regime in her hands, one of the reporters standing by asks her whether pursuing the past is the best thing for the country or whether, instead, everyone should be looking for the future. Unsurprisingly, Eunice holds firm in her belief that getting closure about her husband’s fate is not just a personal matter but one of grave historical and national importance. Her pursuit of justice, acknowledgment, and accountability means something not just to her and her family but to Brazil as a country and to all of those who, like her, lost a loved one to the depredations of the regime. There’s such steely determination in her eyes, such seemingly effortless calm in her voice, that she carries you along with the strength of her convictions and her righteous cause.
As the film draws to its close, we skip ahead in time again to 2018, in which an elderly Eunice is now largely lost in the fog of Alzheimer’s Disease. In these last pivotal moments the past and the present glide into one another, but it’s clear that there are still moments of lucidity, moments when she comes back to herself and recognizes who she is and what she’s done. When, for example, she sees a TV report about her late husband and the other atrocities committed by the regime, there’s a glimmer of recognition, a spear of light in the darkness. It’s a fittingly melancholic end to a powerful and moving film.
There are some films which just strike you like a bolt of lightning, and then there are those which are more subtle but nevertheless devastating. I’m Still Here falls into the latter camp and, while I remain disappointed that the film didn’t get the Best Picture Oscar that it deserved–I’m even more disgruntled that Torres didn’t get the Oscar for Best Actress–I remain convinced that this will be one of those films that stands the test of time. The fact that it is based on Paiva’s extraordinary true story, as related by her son, Marcelo Rubens Paiva (who appears in the film as a character in his own right, makes it that much more poignant. This is a film that stays with you long after the final scene, the photographs that appear along with the credits reminding us again that this is a true story, that these were real people, and that their stories matter. I’m Still Here is a film that will surely stand the test of time.