I'm Still Here starts at the Ipanema Beach across the family's house, just another day in Rio that is full of sun, sand, family and friends. We follow them into their house where there is always a beautiful summer breeze, art and comfort. Salles said that he was childhood friends with the Paiva kids and he spent time in their house by the beach in the late 1960s, a house that was always open and lively, which undoubtedly perfected his depiction of it. The first bit of the film presents life in this vibrant household but does not let you get lost in it with the sounds of helicopters and tanks; you feel Eunice's worries that she tries not to give in to. Later on, armed men show up at their door, taking Rubens away for a 'deposition' without giving any explanation. The house then gets darker as these men close the curtains and keep the rest of the family under watch for days before taking Eunice and her daughter for interrogation. Neither the family in real life, or us, as the audience, ever see Rubens again.
After twelve days of interrogation and imprisonment, Eunice returns home, dedicated to finding answers. She learns that Rubens was helping the guerrilla forces against the military regime. She does whatever she could, as her house was being watched by some military police officers. After a while, she learns the rumors that Rubens was murdered two days after his disappearance. She lets go of her tears for the first time and fixes her daughter's broken doll with a smile; in Fernanda Torres’s words: “She understood the smile as a weapon: To tell the dictatorship they couldn’t break her.” They move out of their house which is when the youngest daughter realizes her father is never coming back. Eunice decides to dedicate her life to human rights law with the motivation to get an official confirmation on what happened to her husband. Brazil’s National Truth Commission only reveal this in 2014 as well as information on thousands of others who were tortured and killed between 1964-1985.
Salles used very important framing choices that makes you feel the blurred glass wall between him and the political realness of the story
I’m Still Here is based on a political history whose effects are still felt as the movie was released when former president Bolsonaro was being charged for a coup plan. Yet for a story that is this political and is about remembrance, some parts of the movie blunt its capacity: a ‘not all soldiers were bad’ scene in the shortly cut interrogation sequence; emphasis on how Rubens was not a ‘guerrilla’ himself to create a distance between Rubens and the political movement he was a part of; what feels like 'indecisiveness’ on where to end the film (therefore including all possible final scenes!) and overall some minor editing work that seemed problematic. I think Salles used very important framing choices that makes you feel the blurred glass wall between him and the political realness of the story; instead of breaking borders, he attempts to get an emotional reaction out of the audience while trying not to politically upset the masses.
But despite the criticism, this is a movie that deserves the buzz it is getting and is worth seeing for the importance of the story and Fernanda Torres’ performance alone. I hope to see more political and fearless movies in the future!