‘I’m Still Here’ Inherits a Noble Cinematic Tradition

The Surprise Oscar contender ‘I’m Still Here’ follows in a long but, until recently, dormant cinematic genre: the Latin American missing-person movie. This was somewhat popular in the 1970s and 80s when right-wing South and Central American dictatorships, usually propped up by the CIA, were at the height of their powers. At my advanced age, I may not be able to remember where I put the car keys, but I can also definitely remember movies like ‘Missing,’ ‘The Official Story,’ and Mexican director Lourdes Portillo’s documentary about the mothers of Buenos Aires’s Plaza de Mayo, who stood bravely and strong until Argentina’s ruling junta revealed the truth about their disappeared children. I’m Still Here is a direct descendant of that tradition.

I’M STILL HERE ★★★★ (4/5 stars)
Directed by: Walter Salles
Written by: Murilo Hauser, Heltor Lorega
Starring: Fernanda Torres, Fernanda Montenegro, Selton Mello
Running time: 138 mins

But where the movies of the 80s often had the tone of a political thriller, I’m Still Here, while not skimping on the politics, has a somewhat quieter, more wistful, more domestic tone. It lovingly recreates the sun- and music-soaked vibe of 1970s Rio, before everything went to hell, and is as warm a movie about the family dynamic as I can remember. Our heroine is Eunice Paiva, played with quiet intensity by Fernanda Torres in what seems to be a march toward the Academy Award for Best Actress, the wife of a former left-wing Brazilian Congressman turned engineer. Her husband, Rubens, is helping out a rebellion against Brazil’s right-wing government is some undefined way. Their warmly fun family life falls apart one day when shady dudes show up at their home and take Ruben away; she will never see him again.

Ruben and Eunice have five children, ranging in age from about 18 to about 10. I’m Still Here does a beautiful job establishing the family dynamic. And Ruben, played by Selton Mello, is around long enough, at least 3o or 40 minutes, so that we viscerally feel his loss. There’s never been a father on screen this warm and loving.

Director Walter Salles, born in Rio in 1956, knows exactly what that place looked and felt like. He was childhood friends with Marcelo Paiva, the only son of that family, who published a novel about what they went through. We see much of the Melia family life through home movies and old photographs, and it feels like we’re watching memory itself spool before our eyes; it was a groovy, troubled place, long ago. Torres and Mello are both excellent, and Salles also gets moving and realistic performances out of the young actors playing their children. They feel like a real family.

There’s a harrowing sequence in the middle where the authorities take Eunice (and one of her daughters) to a black-box location and subject them to a brutal, unjust interrogation. You get glimpses of torture and injustice taking place inside the prison. But most of the film’s second half is a kind of unraveling of Eunice’s pleasant, bourgeois book-and-music soaked world, as she gradually realizes that Ruben isn’t coming back and she must seize control of her destiny and make the world livable for her beautiful, grieving children. The  real-life Eunice Paiva became a leading advocate for the indigenous inhabitants of the Brazilian Amazon. That is fascinating in itself. But the film’s focus remains on Ruben’s disappearance, on the ripple effect it had for generations, and on the amazing resilience and enduring quality of family.

I’m Still Here is a quietly beautiful movie, and its growing popularity among worldwide audiences shows that humanity hasn’t lost hope. For a film that few had heard of until two weeks ago, it’s certainly touching a lot of lives. And it shows that any genre of film, even one as obscure as the Latin American Missing Person Movie, can stand revival with the right script, the right director, and a big, loving heart in the right place.