“A lifetime of psychological torture.” Eunice (Fernanda Torres)
Resistance to autocratic rule has been a popular sub-genre, especially when depicting dictatorships in 20th-century South America such as in Urugay, Argentina, and Brazil. However, “I’m Still Here, takes a different tack—it invades the historically-accurate happy home of the Reubens Paiva (Selton Mello), invades it with junta thugs, and transforms the family forever.
This docudrama is unlike any other as it depicts the psychological torture of this home as the family waits for years the return of the former congressman, which never happens. Matriarch Eunice is left to lead the family, stoically enduring her own brief incarceration and the unwillingness of the regime to admit even her husband’s abduction. This deprivation mirrors a split-second shot of a prisoner being water-boarded.
Director Walter Salles sparingly reveals the toll dad’s absence has on the family, which he depicts in opening sequences as blissfully happy cavorting on the beaches of Rio. While he artfully returns to the beach at the end, the arc is of a remarkably activist mother, having become a lawyer and advocate for indigenous people and for the memory of the horrors of dictatorship. After all, it started in 1970.
Lest the audience become impatient with the early happy family scenes, Salles and his writing team of Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega Murilo Hauser Heitor Lorega (adapting from the Marcelo Rubens Paiva book) intersperses with disquieting interrogation scenes to give a sense that outside the insular family, chaos and decay are ever present.
While I am Still Here takes the unique perspective of the family, the repression is palpable, serving as a cautionary tale about letting personal liberty and human rights slip away during the takeover of autocrats, an abomination all too present even today.
The docudrama has been rightfully nominated for best Oscar and international Oscar and Torres as actress—it is a quiet work loudly exclaiming one of the most disquieting films of the year.
I’m Still Here
Director: Walter Salles (Central Station)
Screenplay: Murilo Hauser (Invisible Life), Heitor Lorega (Mariner of the Mountains), from the Marcelo Rubens Paiva book
Cast: Fernanda Torres, Selton Mello
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2h `17m
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts NPR’s It’s Movie Time and Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take (recently listed by Feedspot as two of the ten best NPR Movie Podcasts) out of WCBE 90.5 FM, Columbus, Ohio. Contact him at JohnDeSando52@gmail.com