01/03/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Directed by Walter Salles and based on the true story of lawyer and activist, Eunice Paiva – brilliantly played by Fernanda Torres – I’m Still Here is the deeply affecting story of a mother, who, after her husband’s sudden disappearance, is obliged to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and forge a new one for herself and her family. Torres’ performance has already won her a Golden Globe for Best Actress and she could well figure in this year’s Oscars.

The story begins in Rio Di Janeiro in 1971, where a military dictatorship has been in power for seven years and where citizens can be stopped and searched, even arrested without warning. Eunice lives a comfortable existence in the affluent sea-side Leblon neighbourhood with her husband, Rubens (Selton Mello), a civil engineer and former politician. The couple have five children – four daughters and a son – and they are planning to build a spacious new home on a plot of land close by. Life is eventful and fulfilling and features a lot of parties, where Eunice’s soufflé figures prominently.

But all the family’s long-cherished ambitions come crashing down one night when six men, claiming to belong to the Brazilian military, enter the house and take Rubens to some unspecified location for ‘questioning’. Some time later, Eunice and one of her daughters, Eliana (Luiza Kosovski), are also arrested. Forced to put on blindfolds, they are taken to the same unknown destination and interrogated for twelve days. When they are eventually released there’s still no word of Rubens and it begins to dawn on Eunice that her husband has become one of ‘the Disappeared’ – those luckless individuals lost to the ruthless machinations of the state. The family is going to have to rethink its plans and start over…

I’m Still Here is a powerfully affecting (and, given recent developments in the USA, utterly terrifying) story of what can happen when a far-right government is given free rein to act as it pleases. Salles cannily uses the framing device of a series of staged photographs, marking different occasions across the family’s history. The sense of passing time is beautifully captured in both Adrian Tejido’s sun-kissed cinematography and Warren Ellis’s nostalgic soundtrack. As the years pass we see the hope that Rubens might one day return gradually diminish.

The script by Murilo Hauser and Heita Lorega – based on the autobiography of Eunice’s son, Marcelo Rubens Paiva – captures the unfolding narrative with absolute authority. A heartbreaking coda towards the film’s poignant conclusion has me in floods of helpless tears. This film is both an accomplished recollection of a piece of recent history and a stark warning about where the world could so easily be heading.

This might not be the most showy of this year’s Oscar nominations, but it may just be the most powerful – and Torres’ performance is truly extraordinary.

5 stars

Philip Caveney