It may be an axiom, but it’s still profound: our self-perception is determined by the accumulation of our memories. This is why science fiction is obsessed with the idea of technologies capable of removing or altering memory, and therefore its holder. This is also why it is so devastating to see a loved one lose their memory, becoming another person.
This is also true on a broader level; Societies, after all, are just groups of people who share memories. Filmmakers around the world, but particularly from South American countries, seem particularly sensitive to this fact lately. They propose that one can reshape the character of a group of people by playing with collective memory, and this is why governments are often keen to sweep away the past. In recent years, acclaimed films such as “Azor” “Eternal memory” And “Argentina, 1985» explored the personal impact of mass disappearances under military dictatorships in Chile And Argentina. More broadly, they show how attempts to deny or ignore these disappearances have lasting effects on those who survived.
The beautiful and heartbreaking “I’m Still Here” joins them with its own story, this one in Brazil. Directed by Walter Salles, one of the country’s most celebrated filmmakers, “I’m Still Here” is based on the 2015 memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, whose father, Congressman Rubens Paiva, was one of the estimated 20,000 people who were tortured during the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985.
Cleverly crafted and lavishly filmed, “I’m Still Here” begins in Rio de Janeiro in 1970 when, despite the military’s encroachment on daily life, the large and loving Paiva family lives largely in domestic bliss. Rubens (Selton Mello) recently returned home after six years of self-imposed exile, following his ouster from the government during the revolution. He and his wife, Eunice (Fernanda Torres), have five children, four daughters and a son, ranging in age from elementary school to older teenagers. They live near the beach, have friends over, dance in the living room, and have a happy, lively home. Rubens still works to support political expatriates, but he keeps his activities out of sight of his family.
One day, however, the couple’s daughter, Vera (Valentina Herszage), is stopped and searched by the authorities while walking home from a movie with friends. Shortly thereafter, news broke that the Swiss ambassador had been kidnapped by left-wing activists, triggering a period of instability that quickly intensified. When men show up at the Paiva home and ask Rubens to accompany them to an unknown location for questioning, Eunice and the children know something is up. Rubens does not return. And then Eunice and her daughter Eliana (Luiza Kosovski) are also questioned.
This is where the film pivots to Eunice, who is not only the heroine in the film but also in real life. This film is her story: she is a woman whose life was torn apart, deciding she would not be intimidated. Not only will she make her children’s lives under immense and repressive conditions, but she will also dedicate herself to changing the world. In his performance – which won a Golden Globe and aims for an Oscar nomination – Torres stuns. Protecting your children means relying on joy in the midst of fear, hope in the midst of pain. Torres doubles his performance with all these emotions, and his searching eyes are magnetic.
But it’s not just a movie about a strong woman, although that’s certainly the case. It’s also about what authoritarian regimes do to keep people in line, the totalitarian tactic of making people doubt what they know they saw by insisting on outright lies. It’s not like someone burst into the Paiva house with guns and handcuffs – although Rubens’s privileged status as a former elected legislator and public figure, it is suggested, has something to do with it.
Instead, control comes through mind games and gaslighting, denying the plain truth that the family can see before their eyes. Official government claims that Rubens escaped from prison are obviously false (it took until 2014 for anyone to be charged in his death), and the family is left in the dark. It’s infuriating to watch, especially since it actually happened, and not just to the Paivas.
“I’m Still Here” stretches its narrative across several decades, tracing the long arm of disappearances and their effects on a country, even when some might prefer to move on, to forget the past atrocities committed by those no longer in power . . When a reporter asks Eunice if they shouldn’t just pay attention to more pressing issues than “fixing the past,” she strongly disagrees. The families must be compensated for the crimes committed, but more importantly, the country must “clarify and judge all the crimes committed during the dictatorship,” she insists. “If this does not happen, they will continue to be committed with impunity. »
“I’m Still Here” was released in Brazil in November 2024. Despite far-right campaigns urging people to boycott the film, this was a huge successthe highest-grossing Brazilian film in the country since the Covid-19 pandemic. Some have noted that the film hits hard in a country that, unlike Chile and Argentina, has never officially sought military responsibility for the torture and murder of citizens during the dictatorship. The film was also released around the time details have emerged of a planned coup to keep former President Jair Bolsonaro, who defended the military dictatorship after his defeat in the 2022 elections, in power.
The popularity of the film is therefore no mystery. However, “I’m Still Here” does not present itself as a simple polemic on a historical and political situation, and this is the secret of its global appeal. It is also a moving portrait of how politics disrupts and reshapes the domestic sphere, and how solidarity, community and love are the only viable path through tragedy. And it warns us against anyone who tries to erase or rewrite the past. Throughout the story, Salles repeatedly shows the family photographs and Super 8 films that preserve their memories. The director said that films are “instruments against forgetting, and that he believes that “cinema reconstructs memory”. With “I’m Still Here” he wants to make sure no one can forget.
I’m still here
Rated PG-13 for what happens during life under the dictatorship, including sounds of torture. In Portuguese, with subtitles. Duration: 2 hours 16 minutes. In cinemas.