In 1998, Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles made a film called Central Station, which garnered international attention and even an Oscar nomination for its star, Fernanda Montenegro. Twenty-six years in a varied and successful career later, he has now made another film that has taken off internationally and earned an Oscar nomination for its star, this time Fernanda Torres -Montenegro’s daughter. It’s a nice bit of serendipity, all the more so in light of a small but significant role given over to Montenegro for one of the film’s final scenes. It’s perhaps more important that she be there than initially appears.
I’m Still Here is based on a true episode of Brazilian history -a fairly dramatic case of political suppression during the military dictatorship years in the 1970s that became a major nexus point for the pro-democracy movement that eventually defeated the dictatorship in the next decade. A critical and consequential moment, Salles chooses to look at it through an intimate lens, the devastation wreaked on this one family, while the larger political implications -though certainly present- are largely off-screen and nebulous. What matters is their struggle, their pain, and their resilience, and mostly that of a matriarch forced to become an activist.
She is Eunice Paiva, played of course by Torres, whose idyllic little life with her family in a beachfront home of Rio de Janeiro, is turned upside down when her husband Rubens (Selton Mello), a former Labour Party congressman in the old government only recently returned from exile, is taken away for questioning by military agents one day in 1971. His absence for a few hours becomes a few days then weeks then months. As the nature of his disappearance by a dictatorship suspecting him of communist activities becomes more clear, Eunice is left to both apply pressure in what ways she can to find out what happened to him, while also protecting her family from this harrowing regime.
Salles lulls you well into the family’s wholesome sense of routine, and the movie does play a little better if you don’t know the details of the real story. Because the image it captures, crystallized but in no way contained by that happy beach photo taken with a bunch of friends midway through the first act, is one of love, support, and freedom. And you get to know in subtle and affecting ways the characters, their relationships and subtle rhythms as they prepare for Vera (Valentina Herszage), the eldest of four daughters, to go live with family friends in London for a while. Concern is expressed over the beginnings of her political awareness, the dangers of state defiance too stark a reality even for this leftist family. They are careful about their mild subversions, Rubens and Eunice never discuss it with the kids. Rubens’ righteousness though goes hand in hand with his lovely tendencies as a father -we’re treated to scenes of him playing Foosball late at night with his son Marcelo (Guilherme Silveira), and burying the lost tooth of young Beatriz (Cora Mora) in the sand, only to secretly keep it to surprise her with later. He’s charming in a schlubby way and has a wonderfully endearing relationship with Paiva, a romance that has lost no spark. And you are absolutely horrified then when he is made to exit the movie, nonchalantly, forever.
In lieu of him, Eunice has to make a series of tough decisions, and Torres really rises to the movie’s emotional challenges here, through Eunice’s own multi- week-long internment and interrogation by government officers, to the measures she takes through contacts to find out any information on her husband, to of course the face she saves in front of her children -wanting to conceal from them what is actually going on in confrontation of their own anxieties and frustrations. It is a formidable air that Torres plays very astutely, her vulnerability strategically suppressed but clearly there. At a couple key moments we see the dam burst, and the even greater hurdle to block it all up again. Eunice is strong and confident, emphatically resilient even under pressure of government watchdogs and threats.
Threats that are indelibly visceral. As much as he conveyed their glorious contentment, Salles translates the intensity of the Paiva family’s violation. The fear that someone else will be disappeared hangs over large sections of the movie, their home feeling less and less safe as Eunice discovers the need to communicate covertly with family friends -lest something happen to them too. When Vera suggests coming back from London that terror over what will happen to her is as present to the audience as it is to Eunice. One of her other daughters Eliana (Luiza Kosovski) was already subjected to the same traumatizing imprisonment, while Nalu (Barbara Luz) is being monitored at school. Salles is old enough to remember this era personally, and you can’t help but suspect this atmosphere is informed by his own recollections of the period.
What also informs the movie is a sheer loathing and disgust for the regime that has far-reaching repercussions into the future, as the film's two closing flash-forwards show. As adults, the children recall the moments they knew their dad wasn't coming back -Eunice ever refusing to lay that burden on them even up to a move to a new city. There are sacrifices in trust, and the film doesn't comment on the ethics of Eunice's approach to the situation -only her adamance in the moment to find answers while safeguarding her loved ones. The pain of her children is palpable too though, in subtle albeit resonating ways. Their lives are both mundane and upended -how can that be squared?
Salles is very honest in illustrating these effects as tendrils of the control the governing force exerts even when life is seemingly going on as normal. Complacency is perhaps Salles's most dire warning as he stresses the routine of anxiety on this family; in concert with his veneration of a woman learning through trauma and turmoil the importance of vigilance. I can certainly say that that feeling hits hard in 2025. It is worth noting that the heinous dictatorship seen here originally came to power with the support of the United States, seeking to remove the democratically-elected left-leaning Brazilian government of the early 1960s. That connection cannot be overlooked now as America begins to resemble what Brazil was then, inspiring similar individual tensions and fears as they more openly don the visage of what they've always been.
The temperature of this movie is luminous. In the heat of their Rio beach, the Paiva clan is bathed in sunny radiance. But that warmth becomes an uncomfortable hot air and muggy -consider the lighting of the scene where Eunice learns some devastating news. And there is a downright coldness in the dark, harrowing gulag unlike anything else in the film. That chill leaves an imprint. The weather never changes but its mood and atmosphere does. I'm Still Here succeeds because it understands the importance of that distinction.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jordanbosch.bsky.social
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Comments
Post a Comment