The Oscar-nominated, true story-based I’M STILL HERE opens with an idyllic family scene, as mom swims in the ocean, her children play volleyball on the beach. She looks up as a dark helicopter flies overhead, briefly puzzled, before turning her attention back to the water, the beach and her family. Her youngest, a boy, has found a puppy and crosses the street from the beach to their comfortable home. The helicopter is forgotten. But this is Brazil in 1971 and a military dictatorship is in charge of the country, and the military helicopter foreshadows what is to come.
I’M STILL HERE stars Brazilian great Fernanda Torres as Eunice Paiva, mother of five and wife of Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), a former congressman turned architect, in an adaptation of Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s biographical book about his family’s experience in under the brutal dictatorship. The film shows the transition from quiet ordinary life to a time of government violence and terror, from the view of one family, during the time when countless people were “disappeared” by the dictatorship.
Fernanda Torres gives a riveting performance as Eunice Paiva, as she is transformed by events when the family is suddenly upended after becoming a government target, a role taking the character from her forties, to her sixties, to late in her life in her 80s.
It is easy to see parallels with our present in the way normal life is slowly transformed under authoritarian government. I’M STILL HERE is one of two Oscar-nominated international films about families under violent authoritarian rule, the other being SEED OF THE SACRED FIG. I’M STILL HERE is set in the past, about one specific family in Brazil under a infamous dictatorship from which it eventually emerged, while SEED OF THE SACRED FIG is a contemporary story of an Iranian family who is a composite inspired by recent events about a family of a government official under extreme internal and external pressures. Both films are excellent dramatic films but audiences might see more parallels with the present here in the historical I’M STILL HERE, and also feel a sense of closure and reassurance in that the country emerged from that period, while things are less hopeful in Iran, which is little changed after the brief uprising against restrictions on women depicted in that film. A drama in which a country ultimately recovers from dictatorship is more reassuring to watch.
I’M STILL HERE is beautifully-crafted by director Walter Salles, takes us into the warmth and fun of this large, lively family. Four girls and a boy, the youngest, keep both parents on their toes but the family is both close and fun. With the help of their live-in cook and maid, mom Eunice keeps everything running smoothly at home while big personality, fun Rubens earns the money and plays around with the kids. The couple entertain frequently in their home, have a big circle of friends and generally life is good in Rio. At the same time, they are aware of the realities of living under a dictatorship, and are careful to keep a low profile. Rubens was once a Congressman but that is in the past, and he stays out of politics now. Still, they are a politically-savvy couple, and it is a wake-up call when their oldest daughter is caught up in a military roadblock, as the authorities search for suspected terrorists and is quickly released only after the military police recognize her boyfriend’s diplomatic connections. When an ambassador disappears, they decide to send their oldest daughter, who will go to college next year and tends already to be outspoken, to London, along with friends who are relocating their family to Britain to escape Brazil’s government.
Eunice and Rubens think they are on top of things, until government official show up to take Rubens downtown for routine questioning. While he drives away, escorted by the officials, a handful of other government officials come into the house to hold the family there until her returns. Some of them are armed. Eunice is a gracious hostess to her uninvited guests, offering food and making them comfortable. Then new officials show up, to take in Eunice and her next oldest daughter in to ask a few questions.
The small steps by which things evolve from normal to not are part of the chilling tension in this well-crafted drama by director Walter Salles. The pacing, choice of shots and mis-en-scene are perfect as this film goes slowly, step-by-step, from it’s portrait of noisy familial happiness to tension and terror. When Rubens is taken away, it leaves Eunice to make decisions she is unaccustomed to making, on top of her worries.
By the time Eunice arrives at the facility where she will be questioned, she knows she is outside any thing normal. Still, she fiercely demands to see her husband or to at least know if he is there.
Fernanda Torres is virtually a national treasure for Brazil, a remarkable gifted actor who can pull off the challenges of this role and play a character convincingly through 40 years. Various actors play the kids as they grow but careful casting makes that seem seamless.
All the cast give excellent performances but Fernanda Torres is the one who shines brightest. Torres is outstanding as Eunice, depicting her going from her wife and mother role to stepping in to take charge. Early on, she is warm, appealing and smart as wife and mother but fierce as the wife defending her husband and children. Eunice is defiant and confident as she demands to see her husband, but she is disconcerted when her interrogator shrugs off her demands. On Torres’ expressive face, we see the slow dawning realization that she has no power after all, and fleeting shadows of fear pass over her face as well.
Torres is the center of most scenes and her powerful, nuanced portrayal of Eunice is key in the film’s
emotional impact, and a lynch pin in the narrative as well. The appeal of this close family is also key as we watch their world transformed.
The majority of the film focuses on the terrifying events the family endures, but then the film leaps forward in time more that twenty years to show them as survivors, adding both a note of hope and a sense of closure, as we see them changed but still standing. And Eunice is still here, as the title says. A further leap forward in time, to Eunice’s old age, gives almost a sense of triumph, despite the losses and what was endured. It is an unexpected way to end this kind of story but director Salles makes it something powerful by focusing on Fernanda Torres’ face again.
I’M STILL HERE is an inspiring true tale of a family that survives, enduring losses and battered but still standing, due to the strength of one woman. It is a film even the subtitle-adverse should see for its depiction of the slow advance of authoritarian power as it chips away at the normal, and for its redemptive ending.
I’M STILL HERE, in Portuguese with English subtitles, opens in theaters on Friday, Feb. 7.
RATING: 4 out of 4 stars
