Much like The Seed of the Sacred Fig, I'm Still Here is a cautionary tale about how nobody's exempt from experiencing larger societal horrors. This includes former congressman Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello). He exists with his family, including his wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres), in Rio de Janeiro in 1970. The country is living inside a dictatorship and the Paiva family is deeply conscious of this. They can't even go to a lovely beach without seeing military tanks roaming the streets. Still, Paiva's relatively high-profile notoriety in society, not to mention Paiva's cozy house, gives Eunice some peace of mind. Surely, they can just live their lives and raise their kids in peace.
That’s before police take Rubens into custody. Some men show up one sunny day, announce this fellow needs to come with them, and then drive off in his car. Eunice, along with one of the family's oldest daughters, Eliana (Luiza Kosovski), is eventually forced to go to a detention center. Here, they’re questioned regarding the family's potential communist connections. Eunice is getting a first-hand look at the grisly conditions instilling fear in this dictatorship. Even after all these horrors and eventually getting released, she keeps asking one question: where is my husband? Rubens has been wiped off the face of the Earth, but his memory isn’t gone.
Once back in the “real world” pursuing justice, Eunice inquires to a teacher (who previously got communications to her leftist son) about securing her help. Surely she could verify the terrible conditions behind Paiva’s vanishing. However, this lady refuses to step out. After all, she's already on the bad side of the toxic powers that be. It’s a common thing among many people in Rio de Janeiro in I’m Still Here. The tendrils of fascism manifest in many ways, including how it suppresses rebellion before it can even start to spark. Hopes of carving out something resembling a “normal” existence, no matter how subdued, are a carrot keeping folks from tolerating the stick that keeps hitting their backs.
This depiction of authoritarianism seeping into ordinary life is one of many delicate touches imparted into Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega's screenplay. Their writing is adapted from the text I'm Still Here (featured in the book Becoming Brazil) from author Marcelo Rubens Paiva, the son of the real Rubens and Eunice Paiva (he appears in the movie portrayed by multiple actors). Though he’s not responsible for the I’m Still Here screenplay, Marcelo’s profoundly personal connection to this material still resonates in this film adaptation. Deeply intimate moments of bonding between the Paiva family members especially reverberate a lived-in aura.
The most moving of such sequences concerns the family gathering to watch scraggly footage of the oldest daughter Vera (Valentina Herszage) in London, enjoying life. This being the dawn of the 1970s, the footage has no built-in synchronized audio. Thus, Rubens read aloud a letter from Vera expressing her joy in these new confines and enduring love for the Paiva family while everyone watches images of her traveling to new destinations. It's an adorable, cozy display of domestic bonding rife with cute touches like Vera's siblings begging to rewatch the footage while taking turns reading her letter.
Anyone with the privilege of seeing the 1997 movie Central Station knows that director Walter Salles is a master of capturing low-key but profoundly moving scenes of characters bonding. This filmmaker’s patience and willingness to linger the camera on tiny moments of human behavior really makes the interactions between on-screen players sing. That talent comes alive again for his extraordinary work in I’m Still Here. The way he captures the Paiva family reeks of realism, particularly in the little dabs of messiness. These intentional imperfect flourishes lend extra emotional resonance to scenes of them bonding during unspeakable turmoil. Just gaze upon an exceedingly poignant moment where the family refuses to frown in a group photo after Rubens vanishes.
Salles and the screenwriters also demonstrate restraint allowing entire galaxies about the characters to come through even when they don’t say a word. Especially moving is Eunice, while the Paiva family is about to move away, scrambling to find one of her daughters who’s been unapproving of leaving their home behind. Suddenly, the camera cuts to a wide shot of this daughter standing on a beach. It's here that the Paiva family previously made so many memories within I'm Still Here's opening sequence. Eunice walks up to her and stands there momentarily. They don’t exchange words, the camera doesn’t shift for a closer gaze of this duo.
What they say exists only in the imagination. The important details of this sequence manifest through visual details. A little over 25 years later, that masterful Central Station filmmaking hasn’t lost an ounce of its power! I’m Still Here would already be a powerful cinematic exercise if its script just focused on Eunice’s plight in the immediate aftermath of Ruben's vanishing. After all, this narrative scope zeroes in on an outstanding lead turn from Fernanda Torres. This instantly compelling actor portrays a woman plagued with endlessly emotional turmoil. However, she can only talk about the absence of Rubens in coded phrases, if she can even reference it at all. Torres manifests this quality in such transfixing multi-layered ways that keeping the plot in the 1970s would be enough to craft a winning motion picture.
I’m Still Here, though, shifts the action forward in time with roughly 30 minutes to go in its runtime. Suddenly, it's 1996. Eunice, now with her children all grown up and Brazil democratized, still pursues evidence of the dictatorship killing Rubens. The starting points of this Walter Salles movie evoked The Seed of the Sacred Fig. Suddenly jumping over two decades in time, meanwhile, reminded me of another standout 2024 movie, Nickel Boys. Specifically, both features concern how trauma and historical atrocities linger well into the future. Pain is not solved in a week. It has ripple effects that go on forever and ever.
These searing depictions of Eunice and her family still grappling with the aching hole left by Rubens getting murdered left my heart nothing short of shattered. A further time jump to 2014 only increased the intensity of my tears. An already absorbing political thriller takes on new levels of emotional depth as I’m Still Here deftly depicts the psychological torment of 1970 and 2014 often being one and the same. This exercise’s profound pathos, not to mention the incredible acting from Torres, renders I’m Still Here a must-see.