Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on basement television.
Some movies are harder to watch than others, and for various reasons. Because of the state of the U.S. right now, I’m Still Here (Ainda Estou Aqui in the original Portuguese) is a film that feels both relevant and terrifying. This is a film about political murder and authoritarianism, as well as military rule, and a lot of it feels a lot more relevant than it should.
As with many a film about a very serious issue, I’m Still Here has a sort of high-concept plot that is easy to understand and terrifying to watch play out. In 1964, Brazil was taken over in a coup d’état. Congressman Reubens Paiva (Selton Mello) resigned his position and returned to his position as a civil engineer. Several years later, Paiva is living peacefully with his family, but is privately supporting political expatriates without the knowledge of his family.
Things start to come to a head at the end of 1970 and the beginning of 1971. Political instability looms and becomes far more serious with the abduction of the Swiss ambassador. A friend of the family decides to seek asylum in London and takes the Paiva’s oldest daughter Vera (Valentina Herszage) with them. The Paiva family is affected by the unrest when their house is raided in January of 1971 and Reubens is quite literally disappeared. His wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) takes up the torch of finding out what has happened to her husband. There are sparse clues to what has happened to Reubens and both Eunice and second daughter Eliana (Luiza Kosovski) are taken into custody for a time.
Ultimately, it becomes more and more clear that Reubens has been disappeared permanently, and Eunice’s quest becomes not to bring her husband home, but to discover exactly what has happened to him, especially as the family becomes harassed by the government, harassment that includes killing the family dog. False reports—that Paiva has gone into voluntary exile and more—make searching more difficult. Ultimately, Eunice learns of Reubens’s death, but the government and military authorities refuse to confirm what has happened. Ultimately, Eunice fights back in the only way she can—going back to school and earning a law degree.
The truth of I’m Still Here is that it’s slow in terms of the story it tells, but the story it tells is one that needs to be revealed slowly. As the audience, we can be pretty sure we know what has happened to Reubens—we’ve seen these stories before, after all. There are plenty of movies where someone vanishes because an authoritarian regime has decided that they should be removed. It’s important to remember that this story is based in truth, written by the son of Reubens Paiva. This was a real man who was really abducted by his government and eliminated because of his support of revolutionary elements in the country and abroad.
Obviously, the parallels to the current situation in the United States are appalling and obvious. Already, there are hundreds of people who have been abducted, removed to facilities, and who no longer have any records regarding their location or even their arrest. Troops are currently stationed in multiple cities around the country, ostensibly to “stop crime” but much more evidently to both intimidate and to cause people to react, allowing for more violent and serious crackdowns. How long before people are arrested for political reasons? How long until what’s already been attempted for broadcasters happens to people in Congress? The mayor of my state’s largest city and our governor have already been threatened with arrest, and I fear this will get much worse before it changes.
Fernanda Torres, who plays Eunice Paiva, is the heart and soul of this film. While Reubens Paiva is the cause of everything that happens, it is through Eunice that we experience the terror and the trauma, including her capture, incarceration, and eventual release. We see the terror of her children through her eyes as well, and her own helplessness turn to resolve. The whole cast is very good—both Valentina Herszage and Luiza Kosovski are excellent in their roles.
I’m Still Here is a movie that, based on the subject matter, is clearly “important” in that Oscar sense of being an issues movie, but it’s a very good one and a very relevant one. It’s not a shock that, based on the quality of the film and the importance of the topic, this won the Oscar for International Feature.
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