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Rio de Janeiro, 1 9 7 1, during the right-wing Brazilian military dictatorship. Eunice Paiva is married to left-wing politician and former Congressman, Rubens, with whom she has five children: four daughters (Vera, Eliana, Nalu, Maria) and one son (Marcelo). One day, unknown armed men in civilian clothes enter their house claiming to be from the government, and take away Rubens for questioning. Eunice and Eliana are also taken away to an unknown location, interrogated and left in prison for days. Eunice and Eliana are released, but Rubens is gone, and the government denies to know anything about him. After a lot of time, news emerge that Rubens was killed. 25 years later, Eunice receives an official death certificate from the government, now democratic again.
A biopic about the case of Eunice and Rubens Paiva, Walter Salles' "I'm Still Here" is a symbol of the Brazilian military dictatorship, and through it a case study on enforced disappearance, torture and murder as a crime against humanity, set during the even wider context of Cold War. Calm, measured, restrained, the movie is able to be both objective and emotional at the same time, showing this personal tragedy of the family as an allegory of the plight of Brazilian people during the dictatorship—but it is one of those 'social issue' movies that place their entire weight into its messages, and not that much into cinematic techniques or artistic creativity. The sequence where unknown men in civilian clothes, holding guns, suddenly enter the family house, claim they are from the government without showing any ID, and take away father Rubens in a car, is eerily disturbing, creating the sense of unease and suspense—since the viewers are not sure what is going to happen next. Later, even Eunice (very good Fernanda Torres) is taken away in the car as well, and placed a black hood over her head.
The interrogation sequence in the military barrack is clever, since everything is only hinted at (while being taken away by the soldier through the hallway, Eunice passes by a door, through which only two seconds of a woman's head being pushed into a barrel of water by soldiers is shown), yet everything is understandable and sharp. The rest of the movie is Eunice's search for her husband, who has "disappeared", but the government pretends it doesn't know what happened to him. Rubens' friend admits to her in one sequence: "So, me, Rubens, Gaspa, Raul... One talks to the foreign press, another provides shelter for people, another delivers letters to families with no news. We do what we can. But we're not involved in the armed struggle." As a left-wing politician, Rubens was one of the targets of the right-wing dictatorship for suspicion of communism and rebellion against the regime. Another gripping moment is when Eunice reads aloud the letter of her oldest daughter, Vera, writting from London, to her children in the house, but later Eunice's daughter Eliana confronts her mother, since she didn't read the entire letter, specifically the uncomfortable part where Vera writes about the British press mentioning the abduction of Rubens. "I'm Still Here" is very good, noble and humanistic, with a detailed reconstruction of the 70s era in Brazil, yet too conventionally directed and still somewhat schematic, just like Gavras' "Missing" was, whereas its 25-minute epilogue is overlong and makes the movie feel overstretched.
Grade:+++
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