“I’m Still Here” (2024) is a film adaptation of Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s 2015 memoir, is Brazil’s submission to the 97th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film and succeeded in getting nominated. Starting in Rio de Janeiro in 1970, the Paiva family includes father Rubens (Selton Mello), a civil engineer and newspaper founder, and mother Eunice Paiva (Fernando Torres) and their five children: Veroca (Valentina Herszage), Eliana (Luiza Kosovski), Nalu (Barbara Luz), Marcelo (Cuilherme Silveira), and Beatriz (Cora Mora). They enjoy an idyllic life near the beach, entertain friends and family and decide to stay even though their government’s military presence is beginning to disrupt their daily life. One day, plainclothes authorities take Rubens, who was once a congressman, and occupy the family home until they decide to also take Eunice and Eliana in for questioning. The mother and daughter are soon separated until released with no news of Rubens. Eunice must find a way to look for her husband, keep her family alive and thrive even though they will never return to their harmonious way of life.
Even though I am still working my way through all the movies submitted for Best International Feature Film—I’ve seen “Armand” (2024) “Emilia Perez” (2024), “Kneecap” (2024), “Santosh” (2024) and “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (2024), “I’m Still Here” stays at the top and seems perfect in every way. It starts as an ensemble feature depicting quotidian rhythm of life for the Paiva family and their neighbors. The kids enjoy hanging out with the adults. Married couples love each other. Adults have close friends and rich social lives that seamlessly incorporate the kids without any friction. The only internal sign of disruption is that the father will occasionally answer the door or phone without revealing details, but it is so natural and open, not surreptitious, that it probably did not seem extraordinary or suspicious, especially in such a bustling, active house.
The nature of oppression is to separate and isolate people so even though most of the film unfolds outside of the interrogation rooms, the expanding suppression is suffocating. This move from paradise to a fallen world is highlighted in the way that the family becomes separated from natural life: the beach, the sun, etc. For anyone watching “I’m Still Here” and is unfamiliar with Brazilian history, in 1964, the military overthrew the president and ended the Fourth Brazilian Republic. The military dictatorship would last until 1985. Perceptive moviegoers will notice how director Walter Salles uses the first act to show Eunice noticing the military presence invading her space: a helicopter flying over the ocean, military convoys rolling on the streets parallel to the beach, interrupting teenagers driving home after the movies, etc. Once they enter the home, it is instinctual to contrast how the authorities use the space and affect the family versus the activities and mood before the domestic invasion.
Eunice emerges as the protagonist and Torres’ performance feels effortless. It is a reliable fact of life that when government regimes impose a way of life on people instead of letting them live, it radicalizes them. Peracles exclaimed, “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.” Eunice is content to be a housewife and mother with a bourgeoisie, middle class life. Torres plays Eunice with such a relaxed, graceful and elegant manner that when the government takes her, it is an inherently barbaric act regardless of their rationale. It is a simple Biblical principle embedded into the secular fabric of society: “let no man put asunder” a married couple. The dictatorship may rob her of her husband and their children of a father, but despite denying her the right to be with her children, freedom of movement, change clothes, clean herself, the ability to tell the day and time, etc., she has an innate dignity and bearing that begins to solidify into an invisible armor that protects her as she plunges into public life.
Without being heavy-handed or pedantic, “I’m Still Here” illustrates the one trait shared between the dictatorship and leftists: patriarchy. Even though Rubens’ actions affect Eunice and the children, none of the men consult with Eunice regarding whether she approves or solicits informed consent. She and the children must live with a group of men who may not be overtly hostile but are threatening since they took her husband and tell them what to do. They get exposed to a dangerous atmosphere, which includes an invasion of all their senses except seeing torture. The laws do not permit her to withdraw money from the bank without her husband’s signature unless he is dead and as a disappeared person whom the government denies even taking, it makes affording to live challenging. She is required to continue to play the ideal wife and mother without a husband thus without the tools to survive. Instead both sides, the fascists and leftists, uphold polite, respectable society by demanding that she become a liar and pretend that her missing husband will be back, and everything is normal.
Eunice faces a common women’s double bind. If she strays from her husband’s actions, she betrays her husband and fails to keep his spirit alive. Her husband’s allies offer useless impractical advice about how she should take care of the family assets. One former acquaintance is too scared to openly side with them. If she follows the spirit of Rubens’ household by living and not just grimly surviving, she does not fit the image of the persecuted, long-suffering wife. The children do not have an instinct for survival so she has the added challenge of keeping them alive and safe from a regime that can do whatever it wants with no checks or balances. Because she is the only safe option to direct their questions and anger, not the government, she faces a disruption to the bedrock of her life, a calm comforting family life.
“I’m Still Here” does not spend a lot of time documenting Eunice’s life once she determines the next chapter of her life without her husband, but the offered glimpse is an impressive story. From passive, acted upon wife and mother, she becomes a powerhouse lawyer who never gives up on trying to get information about her husband’s whereabouts, becomes a vocal opponent to the regime and fights for indigenous people’s rights. In many ways, her open, courageous fight is more successful than her husband’s secret maneuvers. It may just be an accident of casting, but during this portion of the film, Black Brazilian characters appear more as her supporters and move her story forward without fear or the limitations of her more longstanding leftist allies.
A lot of filmmakers heavily rely on the innately riveting story without putting in the work to make a movie that does the biography justice, but “I’m Still Here” is not one of those films. Even though it is a long film, two hours seventeen minutes, it moves forward in a flash, and as you approach the denouement set in 1996 then 2014 in the more urban Sao Paulo, you are going to want Salles to backtrack and fill in the missing time. When the closing credits appear, you will not want it to end. It is a sumptuous period film that recaptures the nostalgia and fear of the time with an innocent sensuousness that feels organic and not forced. You will feel what it is like to be part of a family.
