Review: “I’m Still Here” is a defiant and intimate portrait of a family under dictatorship
Score: ★★★★
Nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, “I’m Still Here”, arrives with plenty of buzz, positioning director Walter Salles’ film squarely in the spotlight. It’s not exactly surprising: This is the same Salles who helmed “Central Station” and “The Motorcycle Diaries”, both lauded for blending socio-political commentary with humane, character-driven storytelling. In “I’m Still Here”, he returns to these strengths, exploring one of the darkest chapters of Brazilian history — its 1964-1985 military dictatorship — through the intimate lens of a single family.
Set in Rio de Janeiro in 1970, at the regime’s oppressive peak, “I’m Still Here” first evokes sun-dappled scenes of children playing on the beach while menacing green trucks loom in the background. The film initially centers on Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), a former congressman back from exile, determined to give his wife, Eunice (Fernanda Torres), and their five children a life that still feels normal and secure. These opening moments are idyllic yet haunted by the creeping sense that a knock on the door could shatter everything. That knock comes sooner than anyone expects, as uniformed agents arrive to take Rubens in for questioning. He never returns. This abrupt turn might have launched a familiar political thriller, but Salles opts for something far more personal: The focus shifts to Eunice as she navigates the agony of not knowing her husband’s fate and raising her children amidst it all.
Fernanda Torres, Oscar-nominated for her work in the film, delivers a performance that is easily among the year’s most emotionally charged. Staring down a system dead set on denying the truth — let alone basic human dignity — her Eunice quietly morphs from a devoted mother into a defiant civil rights advocate. It’s a subtle transformation that unfolds in small moments. In one especially powerful scene set in a brightly lit ice cream parlor, Eunice notices other families chatting and laughing, while her own existence feels on the verge of collapse. Torres conveys it all with one despairing, resolute look. This is Salles at his best: immersing us in the intimate, everyday consequences of living under an authoritarian regime, rather than delivering a barrage of exposition.
Memory becomes the film’s driving force. Salles weaves in archival-like footage — grainy home videos, faded photographs — that stand in pointed contrast to the state’s relentless campaign to erase, distort or “move on.” A recurring motif sees Eunice leafing through family pictures, clinging to proof that her husband existed and that their happiness was once real. It’s a subtle but potent reminder of how authoritarian regimes succeed by attacking not just bodies, but collective memory itself.
As the film progresses, it leans into a powerful question: How do you raise children under the specter of forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings? Salles answers this by focusing on the micro-level tragedies — a mother’s heartbreak, a family’s unraveling — and it resonates. Still, “I’m Still Here” isn’t wholly without flaws. The final 20 minutes sag under the weight of an overextended epilogue, reiterating ideas the film has already driven home. You feel Salles’s passion for memory-keeping and activism, but the repetitiveness risks veering into the territory of a well-intentioned lecture.
On a technical level, the film excels with quiet restraint. Sweeping shots of Rio’s beaches contrast with claustrophobic interiors, underscoring the feeling that the family is steadily losing safe ground. Meanwhile, side characters exist here in supporting roles that highlight the film’s motif of communal solidarity. Eunice’s friends and neighbors, some more easily than others, rally around her — an echo of the film’s larger message that authoritarian systems cannot be toppled by lone individuals. While some might wish for a deeper dive into the grassroots activism rising in response to the dictatorship, Salles keeps the camera fixed on familial bonds, trusting those relationships to tell the broader story of endurance.
Ultimately, “I’m Still Here” stands as a haunting testament to the power of remembering. Brazil is a country that, to this day, grapples with the legacy of the dictatorship — official prosecutions never fully arrived, and attempts at accountability remain patchy. Salles takes that painful reality and transforms it into an elegy for all families who have carried the weight of forced disappearances. He’s not interested in a neat resolution; by film’s end, you’re left with a lingering ache that mirrors the lived experience of those who never saw their loved ones come home.
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