Hong Kong International Film Festival and other event
literature available at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre
I'm Still Here (Brazil, 2024)
- Walter Salles, director
- Starring: Fernanda Torres, Selton Mello, Valentina Herzage, etc.
- Part of the HKIFF's The Masters program
After having viewed a dud of a movie earlier in the day, I returned to the Hong Kong Cultural Centre a few hours later to view a second Hong Kong International Film Festival offering. With a start time of 9pm, running length of 136 minutes and heavy subject, I hoped that I'm Still Here wouldn't be too hard going. And so it proved, as Walter Salles delivered a cinematic gem that was thoroughly involving and appealed to my heart, soul and mind.
A period drama based on real life events, I'm Still Here is based on the memoirs of Marcelo Rubens Paiva, the only son of Brazilian politician and engineer Rubens Paiva and housewife turned lawyer-activist Eunice Paiva. Set largely in Rio de Janiero in the early 1970s, when Marcelo was just a boy (played by Guilherme Silveira for the most part; and Antonio Saboia as an adult), the film opens with scenes of people swimming in the sea and playing volleyball, and generally frolicking, on the sandy beach which the Paiva family home is within walking distance of and looks out to.
The Paivas are depicted in the early section of I'm Still Here as a happy, loving, upper (middle) class (they employ a housekeeper) family -- comprising a cheery father (Rubens Pavia is played by Selton Mello), mother (Eunice is primarily portrayed by Fernanda Torres and later in the movie by her mother, Fernanda Montenegro) and five children -- whose home teems with life and regularly plays host to friends of the adults and children alike. But with Brazil being under a military dictatorship (after the 1964 military coup which had sent Rubens Pavia out of congressional office), trouble lurks and the less optimistic among the people, including bookstore-owning friends of the Pavias, go into exile, if they are able to do so.
One night, a group of armed men descend on the Pavias' home and take the family patriarch away. Eunice and the children -- bar for the eldest daughter, Vera (played by Valentina Herszage), who had been sent abroad for a year -- are effectively put under house arrest for a time. Later, Eunice and another older daughter, are taken away for questioning. And while the younger woman is returned home after 24 hours, Eunice ends up spending several harrowing days in a cell where she can hear screams and a room where she's interrogated whose floors are stained with blood.
After she is returned home but her husband is not, Eunice mounts a campaign to locate him and find out what's happened to him. For the sake of her children, the youngest two of whom were still pre-teens, she tries to maintain a general sense as well as facade of normality but the tension, stress and fear is palpable and impossible to wish away. And yet she determinedly carries on, refusing to rest until she uncovers the truth about what happened to her husband and, also, why.
Throughout it all, there's a sense of authenticity to the story and sincerity in its telling. It's worth noting that director Walter Salles was one of the children who was regularly invited into the Pavia's house in Rio de Janiero, being close friends with the younger members of the family. And that in Fernanda Torres, I'm Still Here has a lead actress who is absolutely masterful in portraying a woman who tries to mask her feelings, yet whose face periodically -- and heart-breakingly -- betrays her emotions.
Based on what I've seen, I'm Still Here rightfully won the Best International Feature Film Oscar this year. I've not seen all the other films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and performances nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. They must have been absolutely fantastic; otherwise, this movie and its lead actress can count themselves very unfortunate indeed to not also got those awards.
My rating for this film: 9.0
No comments:
Post a Comment