Academy Award for Best International Picture. Golden Globe for Best Actress. Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Actress. Recognition at numerous film festivals. I’m Still Here is making a lasting impression on audiences worldwide. One of my favorite movie experiences is loving a film that I went into without much knowledge or with relatively low expectations. This is such a film.
I’m Still Here is directed by Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) and based on the memoir by Marcel Rubens Paiva, son of the film’s protagonist Eunice Paiva. In a performance for the ages, Fernanda Torres encapsulates Eunice’s high wire balancing act as family matriarch during Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985). Salles depicts the dichotomy of life in the early 1970s through a lived-in filter punctuated by the family taking photos of each other and eldest daughter, Vera, documenting their lives on Super 8 film. There’s the idyllic house across the street from the beach with Sugarloaf Mountain looming above. Inside the home, life is family, dancing, parties, and culture. Outside this bubble of paradise, military convoys rumble by, and helicopters soar overhead. The increasing political instability hits home when Vera is stopped and searched by military authorities on the way home from the movies. Then the military raid the Paiva’s residence and arrest husband Rubens Paiva, an architect and former congressman who is secretly assisting political exiles. Eunice’s chilling nightmare has begun.
Inquiries about her husband go nowhere and she is taken in for questioning and held prisoner for 12 days. Teen daughter, Eliana, is also apprehended for 24 hours. Upon release, Eunice maintains a calm exposure despite the fact that she knows she may never see her husband again. Torres’ powerful restraint is unforgettable. Her five delightful children are handling the political invasion of their domestic bliss in different ways. The older daughters are increasingly aware of their mother’s silent grief and the precarious situation of their father. The younger kids are in their normal play world and daily routines. It’s a devastating situation. The family moves to Sao Paulo for a fresh start but does not forget what they left behind. While the military tried to erase the past, their photos and film preserved the family. As the epilogues demonstrate, Eunice will end up embodying the name of the film. She’s still here decades later presiding over her family and helping to save the world, too.
(I watched I’m Still Here via my cable subscription’s On Demand function. It’s available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Apple+ TV and should arrive on Netflix this summer.)
D² Rating ◼◼◼◼☐
Trivia: Who plays the older Eunice Paiva in the film’s epilogue?
Answer below
Answer: Fernanda Montenegro, mother of Fernanda Torres, known as the grande dame of Brazilian cinema, theater, and performing arts.
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