Walter Salles’ Powerful Drama of Resistance

Walter Salles’ 1998 worldwide breakthrough, Central Station, earned an Oscar nomination for the magnificent Fernanda Montenegro. Now in her 90s, the actress turns up towards the top of the director’s first function in his native Brazil in 16 years, the shattering I’m Nonetheless Right here (Ainda Estou Aqui), in a task that requires her to talk solely by way of her expressive eyes. What makes the connection much more poignant is that she seems because the aged, infirm model of the protagonist — a lady of quiet energy and resistance performed by Montenegro’s daughter, Fernanda Torres, with extraordinary grace and dignity within the face of emotional struggling.

Many highly effective movies have been made concerning the 21 years of army dictatorship in Brazil, from 1964 by way of 1985, simply as they’ve about related oppressive regimes in neighboring South American international locations like Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. The human rights abuses of systematic torture, homicide and compelled disappearances signify an open wound on the psyches of these nations, for which cinema has usually served as a vessel for collective reminiscence.

It’s not usually, nevertheless, that the spirit of protest towards the horrors of junta rule is seen by way of such an intimate lens as I’m Nonetheless Right here. That facet is deepened by proof all through the movie of Salles’ private funding within the true story of the Paiva household after patriarch Rubens (Selton Mello), a former congressman, was taken from his Rio de Janeiro home in 1971, ostensibly to present a deposition, and by no means seen or heard from once more.

Salles met the household within the late Nineteen Sixties and spent a big a part of his youth of their house, which he credit as foundational to his cultural and political growth. That accounts for the coursing vitality of the early scenes, because the 5 Paiva siblings sprint forwards and backwards between the home and the seaside, and an prolonged household of pals of all ages appears to be consistently dropping by for drinks and meals and music and full of life dialog.

There are candy throwaway moments like two of the sisters dancing and singing alongside to the Serge Gainsbourg-Jane Birkin wispy make-out basic “Je t’aime … moi non plus,” with out understanding the phrases. Simply watching how one of many youngest children, Marcelo (Guilherme Silveira), sweet-talks his means into holding a stray canine they discovered on the seaside conveys the heat, spontaneity and affectionate scrappiness of the Paiva family dynamic. The younger actors enjoying the children are all disarmingly pure and interesting.

The primary blunt intrusion into the household’s bubble of closeness and luxury comes when eldest daughter Vera (Valentina Herszage) is out with a gaggle of pals and their automotive is pulled over at a tunnel roadblock. It’s a disturbing scene through which we see youngsters — simply minutes earlier cruising alongside, sharing a joint and laughing — ordered at gunpoint to face towards a wall whereas army officers query them, looking out their faces for any resemblance to the “terrorist killers” they’re seeking to apprehend.

An occasional hushed cellphone dialog or non-public change with a pal suggests Rubens’ involvement in one thing that must be saved quiet. However the script by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, primarily based on the e book by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, saves these particulars till lengthy after Rubens is taken into custody. That places us in the identical place as his spouse and youngsters, questioning what their father might probably have performed to position him within the regime’s crosshairs.

The chilliness of uncertainty is hardest on Rubens’ spouse Eunice (Torres), who does what she will to cover what’s occurring from the youngest children. However having armed strangers of their home and a automotive parked throughout the road to maintain a relentless eye on them is hard to elucidate, and the older siblings are conscious one thing could be very flawed.

The scenario escalates when Eunice is hauled off for interrogation. With Vera away in London with household pals, the subsequent oldest, 15-year-old Eliana (Luiza Kozovski), is compelled to accompany her mom, with luggage put over their heads to maintain them from realizing the place they’re being taken.

The interrogation scenes, set in a grim constructing with confinement cells, are harrowing. Eunice is sequestered for 12 days. Denied contact with the household lawyer, she’s saved fully at nighttime about what’s taking place to her daughter and is unable to study the place her husband is being held. She’s coerced time and again to establish individuals in photograph recordsdata as potential insurgents, however except for her husband, she acknowledges just one lady who teaches at her daughter’s faculty. Her isolation and concern are made worse by the fixed screams of individuals being tortured coming by way of the partitions.

There are various moments of uncooked tenderness after Eunice is launched — notably when one in all her daughters watches from the lavatory doorway, her face a mixture of sorrow and terror, as her mom showers away 12 days of grime.

With the federal government refusing to acknowledge even that her husband was arrested, Eunice continues fishing for info, speaking to Rubens’ pals who inform her the army is “capturing blind,” going after random individuals primarily based on nearly nothing concrete. Unable to make financial institution withdrawals with out her husband’s signature, she struggles to maintain up with bills. On the identical time, she begins finding out the household lawyer’s case file, foreshadowing her eventual determination to relocate with the 5 kids to São Paulo and return to school.

The chief focus of Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s e book is actually his mom’s quiet heroism — first as she single-handedly shoulders the accountability of holding the household collectively and guarded, concealing her grief when the inevitable is confirmed, and subsequently when she earns a regulation diploma at 48 and turns into lively in various causes. That features pushing for full acknowledgment from authorities of disappeared individuals like Rubens after democracy is returned to the nation.

Salles’ heartfelt movie jumps ahead 25 years after which by nearly 20 extra, permitting us to soak up Eunice’s self-reinvention not in massive crusading speeches however merely in her dedication to the work of holding recollections alive and never letting the abuses of the previous be swept away.

Maybe probably the most fantastically noticed arc of the movie is the gradual rebuilding of the household. As the youngsters develop up and marry and grandchildren come alongside, they transition again into a loud, joyful clan very similar to the one depicted in carefree scenes at the beginning. Even the straightforward technique of sorting by way of bins of household photographs is seen as a loving act of reclamation in a last stretch that can have many audiences in tears.

Torres (one of many stars of Salles’ terrific early movie, International Land, co-directed with Daniela Thomas) is a mannequin of eloquent restraint, displaying Eunice’s non-public ache and her needed fortitude by the subtlest of means. Solely as soon as throughout the movie does she elevate her voice in anger after a tragic incidence, beating on the home windows of the parked automotive watching the home in Rio and screaming on the two stone-faced males inside.

The ultimate scenes through which Montenegro steps into the function are bittersweet, as Eunice has grow to be nonverbal and makes use of a wheelchair, in steep decline with Alzheimer’s. The poignancy is sort of overwhelming as we watch her gently lean in, her eyes lighting up and a touch of a smile forming, when Rubens’ {photograph} seems in a tv program on the heroes of the resistance.

The film appears attractive. Adrian Teijido’s agile cinematography makes use of 35mm to nice grainy impact to evoke the ‘70s and Tremendous 8mm house films shot throughout that decade present pretty punctuation. The opposite key asset to the movie is Warren Ellis’ rating, which begins out pensive and quietly troubling earlier than shifting nearly imperceptibly into a way more emotional vein with the surge of feeling that accompanies the ahead time jumps.

Whereas it might use a much less generic worldwide title that’s not additionally a widely known Stephen Sondheim tune, I’m Nonetheless Right here is a gripping, profoundly touching movie with a deep properly of pathos. It’s one in all Salles’ greatest.