Why “I’m still there” will always be a powerful watch | Shy

“I am still here” by Walter Salles, who won the best international long film Oscar earlier this year, calmly but powerfully observes a real personal struggle under a dictatorship in Brazil in the early 1970s. Although never neglecting the sinister and horrible aspects of that time, the film remains focused on small but resonant human moments, and these intimate interactions While the story finally takes place at its epilogue in two parts.

The film begins with a description of how things were mostly well and pleasant for Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello) and his wife, Eunice (Fernanda Torres), and their five children in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in December 1970. The country has been under a military dictatorship since the years 1964 leftist political career during this period. However, he is now back in his former civilian career career, focusing more on the well-being of his family, and the first part of the film describes madness how he and his family go joyfully through another day of their worldly life.

Their country becomes more volatile every day. Rubens and Eunice become more aware of the possible dangers around their family and many others. When one of his close friends is about to move to London with his wife for security, they decide to move their eldest daughter with this friend because they are afraid of having serious trouble at home. Eunice also notes that her husband hid something. He sometimes has a telephone conversation in private, but Eunice does not ask too much, mainly busy taking care of the rest of their children.

One day, several men enter the house of Ruben and Eunice, and Ruben is soon escorted to be questioned for an unpertified reason. While these guys are starting to watch over her and her children at home, Eunice begins to fear for the worst, but they say nothing about the reasons why her husband was taken, even less when he is back. She has no choice but to wait, while protecting her children as best she can.

In the end, Eunice is also removed, with her second oldest daughter, and the following then is the darkest part of history. Although the film depicts Eunice and the fate of his daughter with a considerable restraint, it is more than enough for us to be disturbed and refrigerated by the brutal political horror surrounding their situation.

Fortunately, Eunice and her daughter are finally released, but her husband remains missing as before. While the government refuses to recognize anything about its disappearance, Eunice decides to seek any information that could help her find her husband. Of course, he becomes more obvious to her than her husband will never come back, and she and her children soon find themselves watched by suspicious people who can be government agents.

The scenario of Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, which is based on the memories of the same name written by Marcelo Rubens Paiva (he is one of the five children of Eunice, by the way), chooses the restraint. Although there are a few moments later in history, the film patiently follows how many eunice struggles in one way or another when she is looking for information on her husband, and we have just admired her silent but more strong will and determination, especially when she ultimately makes a difficult decision but necessary for herself as well as her children later in history.

Everything in the film depends a lot on the beautifully nuanced performance of Fernanda Torres, who was rightly nominated for the Oscar for the best actress. Subtly transmitting the growing anxiety and despair of his character, Torres gradually occupies the front of the scene, and she is particularly heartbreaking because Eunice and her children must adapt to their life irreversibly changed after the disappearance of her husband.

Around Torres, several main members of the distribution shine, bringing more human depth to history. Selton Mello is well sunk as a loving husband of Eunice and Guilherme Silveira, Valentina Herszage, Luiza Kosovski, Barbara Luz and Cora Mora hold their respective places although the five children of Eunice. Fernanda Montenegro, who is also the mother of Torres and is known to most of us mainly for her performance nominated from the Oscars in the 1998 “Central Station” room film, made a brief but effective appearance during the film’s epilogue.

By the way, when I watched the film for the first time at the beginning of this year, I thought that his epilogue in two parts was a little too long, and I would not have complained at all if he had stopped just after the first half of his epilogue. However, after having reviewed the film at its recently released in South Korean theaters, I came to see the importance of the second half. While resonating strongly with the title of the film, it also encourages us to think more about what many ordinary people, including Eunice and his family, had to endure and remember during this dark period in Brazil.

The film touched a lot of nerves with my parents, who had to go through the period of military dictatorship in South Korea. After watching the film together yesterday, they surely had something to share with me, like people who still remember this dark period. In addition, our country could have returned to this dark and terrible period due to the attempted coup by this deplorable president towards the end of last year, and that certainly makes me feel the film of me and many other local audiences here.

“I am still there” is an undeniably powerful human drama which also feels completely relevant to us, taking into account the current rise in fascism and dictatorship in the world. Although it has been relatively silent since “on the road” of 2012, Salles shows here that he has lost none of his talents, releasing his best work from the “Central Station”.