'I'm Still Here' Celebrates Unglamorous Heroism
Walter Salles' new film depicts the power of perseverance in the face of authoritarianism.
I feel like our modern attitudes regarding authoritarianism and resistance are largely shaped by World War II and Star Wars. Fascism always looks like big banners, military marches, and brutalist architecture and resistance always looks like a scrappy group of regular people on the front lines against adversity. When Trump was elected in 2016 and we saw the beginnings of “Resistance Twitter,” people could only envision it as Harry Potter by saying things like “The Ministry is taken! Wands up!” which led to the reply that these people should read another book. We like the romanticism of doing something heroic, and we’re not too concerned with the nuances presented by real horrors beyond our control.
Walter Salles’ terrific new film I’m Still Here takes a different approach by telling the true story of Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres) based on her son Marcelo’s memoir. Eunice’s husband Rubens (Selton Mello) is an activist working against the military dictatorship in Brazil in 1971. One day, the secret police show up at their home and Rubens is taken away. A few days later, Eunice and her daughter Eliana (Luiza Kosovski) are also taken to a police station where they’re asked to identify “terrorists.” While Eunice and Eliana are eventually released and sent back home, Rubens is not. Friends assure Eunice that Rubens will be returned. However, because her husband has been disappeared by the state, he is now neither dead nor alive. This creates not only psychological strains on the family but financial ones as well since they rely on his income as an architect and can’t use the bank account that’s in his name if he’s not officially deceased.
At this point in the story, we’d like to think about radicalization, and taking up arms against the evil oppressors. You join the underground (whatever that is) and start planning retaliation. But Eunice has five kids and no income. There are still bills to pay. One of the things Salles shows from the beginning is how relatively normal everything is even under dictatorship. People still play at the beach. They go get ice cream. This isn’t wartime; this is life, and sometimes there’s no room to go off and play hero.
That’s what makes Eunice’s story so remarkable. She’s not buckling under the regime, but she has to go on despite it. She still has to raise a family, and she doesn’t know what the future holds for them. Maybe the state will leave them be, but we see even after Rubens is taken that the house is still under surveillance. They’re still being subjected to the psychological torture of not knowing if a beloved husband and father is dead or alive, and what kind of treatment this man is being subjected to or where it’s even happening.
Perhaps the most potent scene in the film comes when a tabloid (typically a dirty word, but here meant to convey a publication not under state control) comes to do a story on the family. The photographer asks the family to stop laughing and smiling because the editor wants a sadder, more somber photo to accompany the story. But the Paivas can’t help it. It’s not that they’re happy about losing Rubens, but they’re still a close-knit family. They joke around. They’re aware of the underlying absurdity of their situation. But most of all, they’re not letting the state steal the love they have for each other. They will remain the Paivas.
Watching the hardships fall upon this family, it would be easy to understand if Eunice fell apart. Her whole world was shattered. At times, the film is reminiscent of Lynne Littman’s horrifying 1983 film Testament in which a matriarch has to hold her family together in the aftermath of a nearby nuclear strike. Like Littman, Salles uses home videos to convey happier times; moments frozen in time before the world at large obliterated domestic bliss.
Thankfully, I’m Still Here ends in a more uplifting (albeit still bittersweet) place than Testament. It gets there because Eunice Paiva didn’t know the future, but rather than trying to hide in the past, she had no choice but to forge an uncertain path for herself and her family. It didn’t involve revolution. It didn’t involve glamorous escapades. It involved working to provide as much safety and security for her loved ones as possible during uncertain times.
I’m Still Here is currently playing in theaters in limited release.
What I’m Watching
David Ehrlich released his “25 Best Films of 2024” supercut video, and while I don’t necessarily agree with all of his choices (I wouldn’t say Megalopolis or The First Omen are among the year’s best pictures but to each his own), these do function like a nice “The Year in Film” recaps.
If you’d like to support Ehrlich’s work, he’s asking that you donate to The Palestine Red Crescent Society, which provides emergency medicine and ambulance services in the Palestinian territories. This charity was recommended by Basel Adra, co-director and subject of the incredible documentary No Other Land, which chronicles life in the West Bank.
What I’m Reading
I’ve discovered I can get through about 5% of Demon Copperhead per day. Any more than that and it overloads how sad I get in a single sitting. As I said last week, it’s a great book! But it’s also a chronicle of all the ways America fails its poorest citizens.
In other reads:
There Is No Safe Word by Lila Shapiro [Vulture] - I had a few thoughts reading this shocking and disturbing piece about the sexual abuse allegations against author Neil Gaiman. The first is one my wife echoed when I told her about the article: “Don’t trust a guy who’s eager to tell you what a feminist he is,” (see also Whedon, Joss). It’s not that men shouldn’t be feminists, but you should be wary of men who want to claim the label for personal cred.
Second, I wasn’t aware of Gaiman’s background in Scientology (his parents were major players in the organization until current head David Miscavige ousted them) and it provides some useful illumination on what perhaps drove Gaiman to his alleged acts.
Third, when you read a terrific piece of journalism like this, you understand why Silicon Valley overlords like Zuckerberg and Musk want to discard the media as it stands and hand over reporting to randos on social media (the “community notes” feature that currently stands on X and coming soon to Meta products). Reporting like this requires time and resources, and it’s to the benefit of powerful individuals that journalism gets offloaded onto individuals who lack the time and money to investigate wrongdoing. Even if they get that far, the lack of resources means that wealthy individuals can sic an army of lawyers on a lone reporter to ruin their lives, thus sending a message to anyone who would try to publish anything deemed harmful to a powerful person.
What I’m Hearing
There’s a new season of You Must Remember This called “The Old Man Is Still Alive,” which looks at how Studio Era directors spent their final decades in the New Hollywood and Corporate Hollywood of the 70s and 80s. The first subject is Frank Capra, who I learned was pretty antisemitic! But I still love It’s a Wonderful Life even if Capra grew into a salty bastard who couldn’t handle going from the pinnacle of the industry to an afterthought. I also think there’s a cautionary tale for our modern-day Capra, Aaron Sorkin, that he likely will not heed.
What I’m Playing
I’m immensely enjoying Sleeping Dogs even if it’s showing its age as a game that came out in 2012. I just wanted to run around Hong Kong punching bad guys. I’m a simple man with simple tastes.
Also, I would very much like the next person who interviews Emma Stone to get her thoughts on voicing a supporting character in a video game. It’s important to remember that around this time, Stone was still a rising star (given video game production timelines, she likely would he recorded around 2009 or 2010, so certainly a name, but not at her current level of fame), but I’d like to hear her reflect on the experience simply because I can’t think of too many Oscar-winners that have done voice work for games. Maybe we can get Meryl Streep in the next Grand Theft Auto.