“I’m Still Here” review: Fernanda Torres pulls off a miracle

The soufflé is almost ready at Paiva, just across the street from the beach in steamy Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Judging by the undeniably festive atmosphere in the airy rooms of the house, one would not guess that the country is under a fierce military dictatorship.

That Walter Salles, the famous director of “Central Station” and “The Motorcycle Diaries,” first depicting the close-knit family of “I’m Still Here” at its most exuberant, before tragedy strikes, pays dramatic dividends in this remarkably invigorating drama that unfolds in great detail. part in 1971 and based on the 2015 memoir of Marcelo Paiva (only son of the Paivas). Nominated for the Academy Award for Next International Feature Film, “I’m Still Here” brilliantly distills a harrowing chapter from a nation’s recent past into a sophisticated portrait of communal endurance.

Already hailed for her discreetly shattering performance with a Surprise victory at the Golden Globes (the first Brazilian actress to receive the award), Fernanda Torres plays Eunice Paiva, a mother of five married to former MP Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello). We see the pent-up worry on his face, a sign of looming danger: helicopters scour the city as news of kidnapped ambassadors floods over the radio.

Within the walls of the Paiva residence (the film was shot in the house that belonged to the family), Salles and his cast of actors both seasoned and fresh create a vibrant and lived-in dynamic, radiating affection and freedom carefree. And because we have been so wonderfully immersed in the exuberance that they are all about to lose, when darkness reaches their door, in the form of henchmen who interrogate Rubens, the contrast between who they were and what they become is striking. .

At this point, Mello has powerfully established the fatherly warmth that his family will sorely miss. In this absence, memory becomes central in “I am still here”. The story is interspersed with amateur films shot with an 8mm camera, immortalizing candid moments of leisure and love, the ones that really matter. Not only are they indelible in the minds of the Paivas, but they are preserved forever in photos, in the writings of Marcelo Paiva and now on screen through Salles’ filmic interpretation.

Director and cinematographer Adrian Teijido also makes the house a shifting co-star and a physical metaphor for Brazil as a whole. Once a place where friends and family entered through perpetually open doors, the space becomes airtight and airless when the curtains are drawn to hide the men who come to disrupt this idyllic refuge. Through them, the dictatorship arouses fear and distrust to maintain power. Salles communicates state-sanctioned distress by focusing on the disrupted daily rituals of the family.

Eunice responds by buying these morons lunch – perhaps in the hope that their ordeal will end sooner, but also as a declaration of the type of person she is, even to those who might harm her. (Eventually, she and one of her daughters were arrested and questioned, then released.) These seemingly discreet details about her rich personality come from Marcelo Paiva’s intimate reminiscences of his mother and the Paivas’ collective experience in the aftermath of the disappearance of Rubens, skillfully adapted by screenwriters Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega.

Torres exudes the lackluster courage of a woman incapable and unwilling to give in to despair as the days and weeks pass. How could she when she has to raise her children and seek justice for her husband, who may still be alive? Showing masterful restraint, Torres makes Eunice’s few outbursts seem plausibly contained. As far removed from melodrama as possible, his performance is one of internalized grief.

And yet, in the midst of her hidden grief, Eunice treats those around her with a loving, empathetic understanding of their respective fears and the limits of what they can do for her. She moves through the world with humble determination, unafraid to do what must be done, never dwelling on what could have or should have been done. At every moment, we recognize her desire to spare her children the grief she carries. Guardian of their tender hearts, she cannot hide everything in an authoritarian reality.

Just moments after receiving devastating news, Eunice finds a smile for her youngest daughter and the energy to take the whole gang out for ice cream, seeking to recapture some semblance of what they had before. This amalgamation of graceful pride in a crisis and superhuman determination is crucial to Torres’s embodiment of Eunice’s inner strength. And because she is seen as almost unbreakable, when grief slips through her eyes in a lost look or a heavy silence, Torres’s expression is beautifully heartbreaking.

Acting of this subtle caliber is rarely celebrated, but Torres’ unpretentious turn proved undeniable to anyone watching. That a film like “I’m Still Here” emerges on the other side of Jair Bolsonaro’s repressive presidency and is received with such fervor at home and abroad (it’s the biggest hit in Brazil since the pandemic) demonstrates Salles’ assured directorial hand in treating the delicate subject with the seriousness it deserves while emphasizing humanity rather than brutality. There is a striking elegance to his images in the way they bring us closer to people, not horrors.

When a photographer suggests that the family pose grimly for a photo that will appear in an article about Rubens’ disappearance, Eunice refuses, asking her children to smile broadly. Joy is defiant towards the shadow oppressors who wish to see their “enemies” suffer. Eunice’s victory, seen by Marcelo Paiva and resurrected by Torres (and, briefly, by the Brazilian legend Fernanda MontenegroTorres’ Oscar-nominated mother), is not only about survival but also about fostering a family united through adversity.

Resistance takes the form of lives well lived. In every laugh shared, in every new memory created and family photo taken, this clan pays homage to those who are no longer physically present.