Movie review
“I’m Still Here,” from Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles (“Central Station”), is the devastating and remarkable story of a hero. Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres) is a mother of five in 1970 Rio de Janeiro, raising her children during a frightening period of military dictatorship in Brazil. One day, a group of men arrive at the door without warning, announcing they are taking Eunice’s husband, Rubens (Selton Mello), for questioning. That moment, and its repercussions, transforms the family, particularly Eunice, who must overnight become a tower of strength and a shield for her children — and, eventually, others — against a threatening world.
Salles, who was inspired to make the film by a memoir written by Eunice’s son Marcelo Rubens Paiva, tells Eunice’s story in three acts: the first in Rio, letting us see the family’s happy life in their home near the beach before everything changes; the second in 1990s São Paulo, with an older Eunice looking back; and a brief, haunting third act in 2014, with Eunice now played by Fernanda Montenegro (Torres’ real-life mother, herself a legendary Brazilian actor). For the earlier sequences, Salles uses film techniques that take us back in time, giving those scenes the soft, faded colors of old photographs and faint memories, even incorporating footage seemingly shot by Eunice’s oldest child, a budding filmmaker. The final scene is almost startlingly sharp and bright, reminding us that Eunice is still, despite everything, here.
But this saga primarily unfolds on one face. Torres’ Eunice, in the earliest scenes, has a softness to her; you see how this woman enjoys the chaos of her home (she has three teenage daughters and two younger children) and her circle of friends, and, though she’s worried about the political climate, she’s more focused on her husband’s plan to build them a new house on a recently purchased plot. But suddenly Rubens is gone, and soon Eunice and one of her daughters are taken in for questioning. Her lip trembles, facing an interrogator, and she seems to have aged in an instant, but she is resolute. Finally home, she embraces her daughter with a newfound strength: “Your mom takes care of this now,” she says, all uncertainty banished — a willow transformed into an oak.
Torres’ Oscar-nominated performance (the film also has two other nods, for best picture and best foreign language film) dominates “I’m Still Here,” in the best of ways; this is a woman who, after receiving the most devastating of news, pauses to repair her young daughter’s doll, and who insists upon smiling in a family photo for the newspaper despite an editor urging seriousness — she is determined, somehow, to preserve her children’s joy. This mesmerizing film is a tribute to an astonishing woman and a timely reminder of a dark period in a country’s history. And, through its vivid use of photographs (particularly the real-life ones shown at the end), it’s a reminder that through film, our stories live on.