by A.J.
Best Pictures #111: 2024 (97th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee:
“Then one day when we went by, [the house] was completely closed and there was police guarding it.”
Is it wrong to call a movie about something so devastating and tragic wonderful? That is how I felt after watching I'm Still Here, based on the true story of the Paiva family and what they endured under the military dictatorship in 1970’s Brazil. It would be a disservice to use any of the cliched blurbs and one liners that typically get applied to movies based on true stories: triumphant; powerful; a story about the power of the human spirit. All of these things are true but I’m Still Here is so well-made and so deeply affecting that it stands above prepackaged praise or comparison to other movies. I would not have seen it if not for its Best Picture nomination, but I'm very glad I did because this is indeed one of the best pictures of 2024.
The movie begins with a portrait of family life that is simultaneously idyllic–not idealized–and average. They live in a nice house that is walking distance from the beach in Rio de Janeiro. Their house is filled with relatives and friends. One of the 5 Paiva children adopts a stray dog. The teenagers love rock music, especially The Beatles. They like books, make home movies, and take lots of pictures. The parents, Eunice (Fernanda Torres) and Rubens (Selton Mello) are gentle and warm. Also army vehicles drive by in the background of a day at the beach. The grownups talk about the big news story of a kidnapped ambassador. The oldest teenage daughter and her friends are stopped at a checkpoint, their IDs checked, car searched, and eventually sent on their way. Later she goes to school in London and the family gathers around to watch a home movie she sent of an English winter filled with exotic snow–her letter says that it feels weird not to go to the beach at Christmas. It is a wonderful family moment. Then men in regular clothes with guns arrive at the house and say that Ruebens has to come with them. He gets in a car and is never seen again.
Another movie, a lesser movie, would arrive at this moment sooner. After all, every screenwriting class and book says to make the first act as short as possible, 15-20 minutes, 10 if you can. By delaying the inciting incident director Walter Salles and screenwriters Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega make this movie truly a story about a family–not an event–whose lives are disrupted and forever changed by outside forces in the form of political violence. It was also a wise choice to background the dictatorship and any sense of politics in the extended first act. We get lulled into a false sense of security. I think anyone who watches this movie will secretly hope like I did that we get to just spend the whole movie with the Paivas and whatever they get up to. This only helps to deepen the profound loss and irrevocable change dealt to the family.
In addition to a generous screenplay, the emphasis on characters and family life works so well because of the talent and skill on camera, especially in the incredible and wonderful performance of Fernanda Torres as Eunice. The brilliance of Torres’s performance is in her command of expression. She puts on a brave face for the children while conveying fear and uncertainty to the audience. Eunice endures so much, whether it is her being imprisoned along with her daughter, Eliana, and interrogated and played mind games with—thankfully both are released—or the less direct but no less stinging injustice of not being able to take money out of the bank without her husband, who is not legally dead. The low-key defiance of Eunice, while still ensuring the safety of her children, is unquestionably believable because of Torres.
A subtle but important part of I'm Still Here is the production design and the costumes and hairstyles. Everything looks like old photographs of the 1970's; that is to say that the characters' clothes and hair, especially on the youths, looks more like the reality of the era. The hip pretty teenagers look like people trying to look like movies and magazines instead of looking like modern people with their hair and makeup done up in a glamorous, retro style. This is true for the adults as well. The same goes for the house and the cars. Everything looks like it is lived in and used all the time. This goes a long way to setting this true story in a true feeling time and place. Walter Salles's own experiences growing up in Rio as a teenager at this time, especially knowing the Pavia family, no doubt played a major part in capturing the authenticity of this moment in time and these people. In an interview with Variety he recalls, “There was such a vitality to the house. It was a place we all wanted to drift through…Then one day when we went by, it was completely closed and there was police guarding it. You can imagine the shock.”
I'm Still Here is about depressing things but it is not a depressing movie. Receiving a death certificate after decades of legal fights may seem like a morbid triumph, but by this point we know how much it means. Eunice insists that her family smile in photographs, even for a news story about what they have suffered. Those smiles show that they are still a family, still together. Flashforwards deliver a sense of closure and may feel redundant, especially given the epilogue cards, but they are welcome moments. The final scene features an elderly Fernanda Montenegro (Torres’s real life mother who was the first Brazilian actress nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, also for a Walter Salles movie, Central Station (1998); her daughter is the second). It is a small but beautiful moment. This is the kind of movie that seems like homework or eating your vegetables. However, despite its subject matter I'm Still Here is not a chore to get through; ultimately you come away feeling thankful for the experience
Nominees: Maria Carlota Bruno and Rodrigo Teixeira, Producers
Director: Walter Salles
Screenplay: Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega; based on I'm Still Here by Marcelo Rubens Paiva
Cast: Fernanda Torres, Selton Mello, Fernanda Montenegro
Production Companies: VideoFilmes, RT Features, MACT Productions, Arte France Cinéma, Conspiração, Globoplay
Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing (Brazil), StudioCanal
Release Date: February 7th, 2025
Total Nominations: 3, including Best Picture
Other Nominations: Actress-Fernanda Torres; International Picture
No comments:
Post a Comment