- by Richard Titelius
- The Guardian
- Issue #2136
I’m still here tells a story from the dark past of the military dictatorship that gripped Brazil from 1964 to 1985. The film is based on the autobiographical book of Eunice Paiva’s son, Marcelo Reubens Paiva who, witnessed the events of that day and all that followed. The director Walter Salles takes viewers faithfully through three time periods in 1971, 1996, and 2014, the latter being a Commission of Inquiry initiated during the government of leftist President Dilma Rousseff.
The story begins in January 1971 at the house of Reubens Paiva, a former Brazilian congressman whose position was annulled by the regime in 1964 and so returned to civilian life to bring up a family with his wife Eunice Paiva.
The couple and their five children are about to go to the beach when police come to the house to ask Reubens to come to their office to give a deposition. The events turn their family life upside down, and later Eunice and her 15-year-old daughter are also taken in for depositions. When they pull up to the police station they are given black hoods to put over their heads, and we realise not only that things are not what they seem, but also that her husband has suffered a similar fate.
Eunice is made to look through a file of mug shots of various people. The first time she takes no interest. She is brought back later to have another look, and notices a photo of her husband, herself, and a daughter.
Reubens Paiva had some correspondence addressed to him which was intercepted by the officials of the junta, and explains why the junta has barged in on his idyllic family life in Rio de Janeiro.
After 12 days, Eunice Paiva is released – her daughter was released earlier and she goes about bringing up her five children without the support of her husband. At breakfast one day, she announces to the family that they will be moving to São Paulo to live with grandparents – a move met with much sadness and even resistance by the children.
It is a poignant and deeply compelling film, and the characters are imbued with a significance that helps to keep the audience’s interest till the conclusion. The film reproduces 1970s Brazil right down to Rio de Janeiro of the beaches and even the special black and white wavy patterned sidewalks very faithfully.
The fidelity to detail, authenticity and suspense explains why more than 2.5 million Brazilians have seen the film making it one of the nation’s biggest blockbusters ever as people who lived through the times attend with their children and grandchildren – to see what happened back then in the dark years and ensure that Brazilian democracy remains in the light and does not return to darkness.
As many parts of the world are gripped by militarism or the far right, the film explores what happens when characters like former Brazilian right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro (2019 to 2023), current US President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973 to 1989) take over, and what happens to the social, political and cultural life of a country. The reference to Chile in the 1970’s is especially relevant as dissidents from Brazil often fled to neighbouring Chile, which in 1970 elected South America’s first Marxist government
The film has won a number of awards and has been nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Actress for Fernanda Torres (whose now 95-year-old mother Fernanda Montenegro featured in Walter Salles first film, the Brazilian classic – Central Station), Best Picture and Best International Feature Film – which was won last year won by a movie that also examined the politics of the right wing in, Place of Interest about Auschwitz – Birkenau during World War II in Poland.
We invite readers to watch the film and reflect on the dangers of the rise of fascism.
