Final Rating: 4/5
In 1996, Eunice Facciolla Paiva, a Brazilian lawyer and activist, was issued a death certificate for her husband, Rubens Paiva. Rubens, a former congressman, had been disappeared by the military dictatorship in 1971. As this scene plays out in Walter Salles’ film I’m Still Here, a reporter asks Eunice: “Now that democracy is restored, doesn’t the government have more urgent issues than fixing the past?”
Eunice, smiling, doesn’t miss a beat: “No,” adding, “forced disappearances were one of the cruelest acts of the regime, because you kill one person, but condemn all the others to eternal psychological torture.”
I’m Still Here is about eternal psychological torture. The void left after a person is gone, and the shadow they continue to cast over the world in their absence.
The film opens in 1970 with Rubens (Selton Mello) and Eunice (Fernanda Torres) living in Rio De Janeiro with their five children. Salles devotes a significant amount of time to showing their daily lives. The eldest daughter Vera will soon go to London for school, the youngest son Marcello just brought home a dog, the youngest daughter Beatriz just lost a tooth. Eunice keeps the house in order while Rubens, no longer a politician, stays busy with work. Occasionally, Rubens will take very short, secretive phone calls from fellow former politicians.
Mello plays Rubens with unmatched warmth. A loving father and outgoing friend, it’s genuinely surprising that Rubens would keep anything from his family, or even the people around him. He’s politically outspoken to the degree of yelling out “down with dictators” instead of “cheese” at a family photo. It shouldn’t be a surprise when the military takes him to give a “deposition,” and yet the extent of what he might be hiding on behalf of the revolutionary movement remains a mystery to even his wife.
These early scenes not only characterize the Paivas but also establish nostalgia as a key element of the film. Vera is constantly pulling out a Super 8 home movie camera, capturing footage of the family together in the neighbourhood, at the beach, or just ambient shots of Rio in 1970. When the film cuts to Vera’s home movies, it’s like the world around her stops, giving way to this captured memory.
When the world resumes, it’s darker. Brazil under the dictatorship is rendered in harsh colours by Salles and cinematographer Adrian Tejido, especially once the Paivas are abducted for questioning. The prison holding Eunice is oppressively dark, almost fully black in several scenes – though Tejido accomplishes this without sacrificing visibility. After Eunice is released, the world seems more muted. Even if the locations are the same as before they were taken, the Paivas’ house looks a bit drearier, the beach a bit lonelier. In every shot, the film echoes the void left by Rubens.
Torres’ portrayal of Eunice is the standout of the film. Aided by a fantastic screenplay from Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, Torres embodies Eunice as a complex woman thrust into extraordinary circumstances. As the film follows Eunice through the decades, she turns her family’s tragedy into a lifetime of action, with even her strongest moments conveying deep pain.
In one scene she remains cordial while confronting Rubens’ friend and co-conspirator about keeping secrets, but Torres plays it as if she were just betrayed by her closest friend – whom we never see again. Still more of her character comes through in Torres’ physicality. Immediately after her release, Eunice takes a long shower. Salles shows her from all angles, violently scrubbing away weeks of solitary confinement before curling up, exhausted, and letting the water wash away the worst moments of her life.
In another memorable scene, Eunice looks over an ice cream parlour the family used to frequent, taking note of all the happy families sharing ice cream while her own children play hangman. It’s still a nice family moment, made glaringly incomplete by the empty seat across from her.
From the filmmaking to the performances, the shadow of the past looms heavy over I’m Still Here. A past not only diegetic – Rubens’ absence permeating every scene – but also real. Salles uses the Paivas’ story to explore life under dictatorship, nostalgia proving a powerful tool in bringing this uniquely Brazilian story to an international audience.
“When did you bury him?” Beatriz asks Marcelo near the end of the film, “when was the moment you realized he wasn’t coming back?” For Beatriz, it was shortly after his disappearance when the family moved to São Paulo. For Marcello, it was a little later, when their mother started donating his clothes. For Eunice, Rubens was never buried. Even in her final days, after she’s been without him longer than she was with him, Rubens is still there.
Thank you to Sony Pictures Classics and StarPR for the press screening.
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