Walter Salles, “Ainda Estou Aqui / I’m Still Here” (2024)
Based on Brazilian writer Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s memoir of the same name, “Ainda Estou Aqui / I’m Still Here” tells of the period during the writer’s childhood when his father, Rubens Beyrodt Paiva, a civil engineer and federal politician who opposed the establishment of the military government in Brazil in 1964, was arrested by the military in his own home in Rio de Janeiro and taken away in January 1971. He was never seen again by his wife Eunice or any of his five children. The film is split into two halves: the first half is a banal day-to-day portrayal of the Rubens Paiva family at work and at play, with family members frequenting the nearby beaches, playing soccer in the street, entertaining friends at home or eating ice creams at the local gelateria; the second half starts with the father’s arrest and disappearance, continuing from there to Eunice and her daughter Eliana being arrested, imprisoned and interrogated by the paramilitary police, and the family eventually having to sell their home and return to Sao Paulo when Eunice decides to fight to clear her husband’s name and reputation. The film then jumps 25 years into the future, when Eunice, now a lawyer and social justice campaigner, finally receives a death certificate for Rubens Paiva; and then jumps another 20 years into the future, with a mute Eunice suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and being cared for by her daughters and son.
Though the film appears poorly plotted, with what viewers would consider the real action taking place after the family relocates to Sao Paulo, with Eunice reinventing herself as a lawyer and human rights campaigner, the film’s theme emphasises memory in its various forms (in family photographs and videos, family celebrations and newspaper clippings about Rubens Paiva) as resistance against oppression in itself and the use of silence as a weapon by the military. The film makes a statement about people standing up for what is right and what is truth against oppressive government instead of keeping their heads low and staying quiet – because doing so aids those who are oppressing them. In that light, the film tries to be a snapshot of how ordinary people – though the Rubens Paiva family, being upper middle class, is hardly representative of ordinary Brazilians – can rise above their circumstances, however arduous and dangerous they can be, and pursue justice and truth against oppressive governments. In that context, there is a case to be said for portraying the family’s life before and after Rubens Paiva’s arrest. Unfortunately, the film does not really show the journey the Rubens Paiva family has to take for Eunice to achieve her goals and the sufferings they experience along the way, including the accident Marcelo has that renders him crippled for the rest of his life.
The film revolves around Eunice and her point of view, and in this role, Fernanda Torres does outstanding work as a suburban middle-class housewife with a large brood who finds the inner strength, despite police torture, to purse a path that she otherwise would never have taken had her husband not disappeared mysteriously. Torres and Selton Mello (playing Rubens Paiva) have good on-screen chemistry together, and after the husband disappears, viewers will feel his absence as much as his wife and children (and even the family home) do. It is a great pity then that the film’s plot does not really do much justice to the resolve of the cast of actors in portraying the Rubens Paiva family and to the real people those actors portray.