‘I’m Still Here’: Venice Review

Dir: Walter Salles. Brazil/France. 2024. 137mins

Rio de Janeiro, 1970. The Paiva household lives in a rented home close to the seaside which is all the time stuffed with buddies. They’re comfy fairly than wealthy, however they get pleasure from a unique sort of wealth: an mental freedom and curiosity that feels more and more treasured because the Brazilian army dictatorship flexes its muscle on the streets exterior. Sooner or later, males with weapons come to take the daddy, Rubens (Selton Mello), in for questioning. In his absence, his spouse Eunice (Fernanda Torres) should discover a technique to defend her 5 youngsters and reinvent herself. Walter Salles’ excellent factually-based movie – he was a real-life pal of the Paiva household as a young person – is an an engrossing, affecting tribute to a formidable lady and her household.

 An engrossing, affecting tribute to a formidable lady and her household

Salles’ first Brazil-set characteristic since Linha De Passe in 2008 and his first narrative characteristic in 12 years, I’m Nonetheless Right here has hyperlinks, in star Fernanda Torres, along with his 1998 breakthrough image Central Station. Torres is the daughter of Fernanda Montenegro, who was Oscar-nominated for her efficiency in Central Station and who has a short however exceptionally highly effective cameo right here because the aged Eunice. And like Central Station, it appears seemingly that, regardless of its size, I’m Nonetheless Right here shall be positioned as an awards contender by Sony Photos Classics, which picked up the title for US distribution in Cannes earlier this yr. Altitude will launch the image within the UK, following a busy pageant itinerary that takes in TIFF, New York and San Sebastian.

The movie is tailored from a guide by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, the son of Rubens and Eunice, which addresses the topic of Brazil’s disappeared, victims taken by the Brazilian dictatorship, by way of the eyes of these left behind. And the guide just isn’t the one materials that Salles needed to work with: the Paiva household was – and nonetheless is – devoted self-documenters. Actual-life images, that are shared within the closing credit, present a wealthy useful resource for the design departments, which vividly seize the movie’s durations (primarily the early 70s, however with two later sections set in 1996 and 2014). And Tremendous 8 footage – the oldest daughter Vera (performed by Valentina Herszage as a young person) is consistently brandishing a digicam – is brilliantly used to evoke the enjoyment and freedoms which are threatened by the regime.

Nowhere is that this more practical than in an early sequence, wherein Vera and her buddies drive by way of town, capturing its vibrancy and spark by way of the keen lens of the Tremendous 8 digicam and singing alongside to a monitor by Tropicalia musical legend Tom Zé. Then the automotive hits a army roadblock and the children are abruptly pulled from the car for an ID verify that feels loaded with barely contained violence. Elsewhere, the image is shot on 35 mm, with a digicam that appears innately attuned to the power and chaos of a big household (on this, and within the simmering backdrop of political unrest, there are apparent parallels with Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma).

Violence is all over the place, the background noise to regular life. However for the Paiva household, good occasions are one of the best type of resistance. They’re about to interrupt floor on a brand new development undertaking – a mid-century modernist dwelling for the household with a view of the Christ The Redeemer statue – the Paivas are, in a number of methods, devoted to constructing a greater future in Brazil.

However Rubens’ disappearance brings into focus issues with life in ‘70s Brazil that transcend the actions of a brutal army regime. Eunice finds herself confronted by an rigid and deeply unhelpful patriarchy. Rubens and his male buddies have been all, she learns belatedly, covertly politically energetic, however none of them thought to share this data with their wives. A financial institution supervisor, a pal of the household, politely declines her request to withdraw cash from the Paiva account with out her husband’s signature. Like Eunice herself, the dealing with of the story is elegant and restrained: Salles by no means over-labours the movie’s emotional beats, relying as a substitute on Torres’ magnificent, intricately layered efficiency to drive the image.