Richard Tobin reviews the devastatingly emotional true story depicted in I’m Still Here, Brazil’s first ever Academy Award winning movie.
Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here (2024), one of this year’s Best Picture nominees and winner of the Best International Film award at the Oscars, is a Brazilian political drama depicting the harrowing true story of the Pavia family during Brazil’s military dictatorship throughout the 1970s. The film follows Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Tores) whose husband, former congressman Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), is forcibly taken from their Rio de Janeiro home by the regime's soldiers. As Eunice confronts the oppressive regime, she embarks on a relentless quest for truth as she tries to find her husband all while striving to protect her five children from the surrounding turmoil.
I’m Still Here (2024) is a powerful film, but not an easy watch. The film pulls no punches with its depiction of its characters' lives under the brutal dictatorship, and the first 30 to 40 minutes makes the nightmare of their situation hit home later in the film. We see the Paivas family living their lives: spending a day at the beach, dancing together to their records, playing foosball quietly while the rest of the family is asleep - beautifully simple depictions of family life.
These scenes invite the audience to feel as if they are a part of the Paivas family, enjoying the same happy moments they are. It’s a credit to Salles’ great direction how well these scenes flow together. All the while, the looming threat of the dictatorship regime exists in the background - tanks with sirens zooming by disturbing their day at the beach, hushed discussions in Rubens’ office. Salles’ captures the peaceful daily life of the characters all while hinting at the unimaginable series of events to come.
The whole cast are breathtaking and play a major part of why the film is so impactful, capturing both hope and anguish. They are the beating heart of this movie. The family members have a tight-knit, supportive dynamic with each other - this is down to Hauser and Lorega’s relaxed dialogue and the natural chemistry the cast have with one another. Fernanda Tores’ performance has rightfully been the point of discussion this awards season. She epitomises everything Eunice is; resilient but worried, caring but drained, and trying to do the best she can for herself and her family in an awful situation. Tores conveys this through her muted body language and worried facial expressions. In a quiet scene of Eunice swimming in the sea, Tores doesn’t even have to speak to still perfectly capture the exasperation and despair her character is experiencing while she takes a brief reprieve from the stress of it all. Special mention must also go to Selton Mello as Rubens, despite the character’s shorter screentime, Mello lights up the screen every time he appears.
The film’s cinematography has been a grossly overlooked aspect of the film. Tores expertly frames some pivotal scenes after Rubens’ kidnapping and the family are often framed against the backdrop of buildings or tight doorways and hallways which display how boxed in they really are. Another intriguing detail in the film is how Salles shows Brazil, whether it be the needle drops like Baby by Os Muntantes or just the sheer beauty of scenes set at the beaches of Rio De Janeiro, Salles manages to convey the amazing aspects of Brazilian life and culture while showing a dark part in its history.
Where I’m Still Here falters in its execution is through its pacing, especially in the final act of the film. It’s a relatively slow paced movie and is more about the gradual journey Eunice and her family are on to get through the tough times they’re facing. The film's distinctive slower pace is comforting at the beginning but as the film goes on it could have done with an injection of pace, especially towards the end of the film when it began to feel repetitive.
Despite this, I’m Still Here is an extremely watchable film and one that I’m very pleased to get a bit of acclaim, especially since it has won Brazil’s first ever Academy Award for Best International Feature. It is a film that provides the audience with a reminder to appreciate the little things we take for granted every day.