The quietly powerful I’m Still Here should be seen by everyone

Over the last decade, a foreign language film finds itself nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars and the film-going public gets exposed to a brilliant film they otherwise would have missed.

I’m Still Here fills that position this year, with grace to spare.

The first-ever Brazilian film to be nominated for Best Picture (and will annoyingly lose Best International Feature to Emilia Pérez), I’m Still Here tells the true story of Eunice Paiva, a wife and mother coping with the forced disappearance of her husband Rubens in dictatorship-era Brazil.

Based on her writings, the film is a powerful look at how a family unit tries to hold itself together in the most trying of circumstances.

Despite the language barrier, there is a universal nature to I’m Still Here that makes it appeal to just about anyone.

I’m Still Here belongs to Fernanda Torres, a living legend of modern cinema.

Torres received an Oscar nomination and won the Golden Globe for her performance as Eunice Pavia and her performance is a career highlight.

Daughter of Brazilian cinema’s first lady Fernanda Montenegro, Torres is to Brazilian cinema what Helen Mirren is to British cinema; someone with a quiet dignity that you can’t take your eyes off.

Montenegro herself makes an appearance later in the film, playing an older version of Eunice, and that real-life subtext makes the film all the richer.

Much like Isabella Rossellini getting her well-deserved flowers for Conclave this year, Torres carries on the legacy of her globally famous mother with poise.

Torres’ performance is the highlight of the film by far; the best actors are the ones who say something without opening their mouths and you can see the gears whirring in Torres’ head in real time.

Eunice faces the impossible with dignity; her husband has been taken by the Brazilian military and has no idea if he will ever come back, yet she persists for her sake and the sake of her children.

When Bong-Joon Ho’s Parasite famously swept the 2020 Oscars, he said “once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films,” and his statement rings true here.

I’m Still Here transcends language barriers to create a film that starts as a bittersweet family drama and morphs into a wave of righteous anger as Paiva seeks justice.

It is easy to see this film being added to school curriculums the world over; the story of pursuing justice in the face of oppression is incredibly powerful and is something that people from all walks of life can relate to.

The film always has this quiet, crushing feeling to it (similar to fellow Best Picture nominee Nickel Boys) and you soon come to fear the sound of a car pulling up outside the Paiva household.

The gentle stillness of domestic life being uprooted by the forces of the state makes for a powerful juxtaposition, a feeling that Salles taps into.

Films based on historical events face an uphill battle; people already know the outcome of events so how do you keep them engaged?

One of the great films of the last 25 years, the German language film The Lives Of Others, manages to mine tension out of Communist-era Eastern Germany and the surveillance state despite the viewer knowing that someday, the regime will collapse. 

More recently, September 5 managed to sustain tension despite everyone knowing what happened at the 1972 Olympics.

This is another area where I’m Still Here takes a gamble and has it pay off.

We have conceptions of what Brazil is like in the modern day – home of a fractured political system, carnival and football – but the military dictatorship only ended in 1985. 

The legacy of the dictatorship era still looms over modern-day Brazil and the film states in the least ambiguous terms possible that normal people were those who suffered the most under the regime.

At the back half of the film, Eunice tells a group of journalists that when a regime or ideology kills someone, it leaves behind devastated survivors in its wake.

That scene is core to unlocking the film.

Director Walter Salles takes the time to help the viewer get to know the Paiva family and the life of ordinary people with a dictatorship ruling their lives.

The spectre of the military dictatorship is never too far away for the Pavia family; even simple trips to the ice cream parlour or games of volleyball on the beach have this unspoken subtext that this is the only normal reprieve in life under oppression.

Selton Mello deserves just as much praise as his scene partner Torres; he instils Rubens with such dignity and warmth you miss him when he’s gone.

The audience fully understands why Eunice is willing to go to such extraordinary lengths to get her husband back and seek justice; it takes a combination of director, writer and actor to convey that.

Salles understands that the audience needs to buy the grief; by every metric, he and the cast wildly succeed.

I’m Still Here takes a gamble; the film has two or three points where it could end and still have a satisfying conclusion yet it keeps going until it builds to this crescendo that gives the audience permission to finally breathe.

It is not hard to imagine I’m Still Here ending up on decade-end best-of lists or even more importantly, added to education curriculums in years to come.

For people who claim they don’t cry at films, you will meet your match with I’m Still Here, one of the very best films of recent years.