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By WILSON HONORIO DA SILVA

To begin with, it must be said that, for various reasons, this is one of those texts that “took on a life of its own,” having already been written, rewritten, and almost published so many times since November. To bring the hammer down now, obviously, has to do with Fernanda Torres being awarded Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama, at the prestigious Golden Globes ceremony, for her impressive performance as Eunice Paiva, in the film directed by Walter Salles. [This was written before “I’m Still Here” received an Oscar (Academy Award) as the year’s best international feature film. — Editors]

This introduction is necessary because, as you will see, the article’s main purpose is not to pay tribute to Fernandinha and her undisputed talent nor to talk about the award itself. But I think it is necessary to make some initial comments on these issues, since the recognition of the institution that represents the foreign press in Hollywood says a lot, both about the film and its importance at the present time.

An award against fear

In her thank-you speech, a visibly moved Fernanda Torres did not hide her sincere surprise at receiving the award with a veritable constellation of Hollywood stars as competitors—Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Tilda Swinton, Kate Winslet, and Pamela Anderson—dedicating it to her mother, Fernanda Montenegro, who competed for the same statuette, 25 years ago, for her masterful performance in “Central do Brasil” (1999), also directed by Walter Salles.

However, for me, the most significant part of her brief speech was the one that touched on what I think is the essence of the film and, in a way, is at the heart of what I wanted to discuss from the first draft.

“This is proof that Art can survive in life, even in difficult times, like the ones Eunice Paiva went through. With so many problems in the world today, so much fear, this is a film that helped us to envision how to survive in difficult times like these,” said Fernanda Torres, establishing a bridge between the past and the present, between Art and History, between political positioning, artistic work, and personal choices.

But to continue, I must immediately confess that I am quite reluctant to [see] these types of awards. In the same way that I am unable to respond objectively to those lists with “the ten best movies, songs, books, etc.” or I stay away from the “World Cup fanatics” atmosphere every time a Brazilian product competes for something “out there.”

I say this because, convinced as I am that it is the “things of the world” and the dynamics of class struggle and social conflicts that reverberate in all aspects of life, I believe it is necessary to go beyond pure subjectivity to understand the impact that “I’m Still Here” is having around the world and, particularly, in the United States. Something that has a lot to do with the “difficult times” mentioned by Fernanda.

After all, here in Brazil, it is not just any production that has the capacity to bring more than three million viewers to theaters. And the fact that this is happening against the “backdrop” of not only the Bolsonaro period, but mainly its continuity, through an ultra-right that never tires of showing signs of life, even influencing the positions and policies of the current government, is undeniable (and should be saluted…).

In the United States, the awards ceremony took place on the eve of the return of the repugnant Donald Trump to the presidency and in a context in which Hollywood and the American entertainment industry have been forced to “reinvent” themselves, mainly after the avalanche of scandals and accusations sweeping Hollywood and its surroundings, particularly since the “Me Too” movement in 2017 exposed the normalization of sexual assault and violence backstage in artistic productions in the country.

It is important to remember this because it needs to be known that the recent history of the Golden Globes was deeply impacted by the many ramifications of this process that was opened by women and expanded by LGBTI+, Blacks, Latinos, and other marginalized sectors of society.

Until 2021, the award was given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) and was considered one of the most prestigious in the world, serving as a “cultural and artistic” counterpoint to the blockbuster celebration represented by the Oscars. A story that unfortunately fell apart when it came to light that there was not a single Black person among the 87 HFPA voters and that, in addition, many of them received “pampering” from the studios to influence their votes.

After this and after facing the boycott of several artists (some of them even returning awards received in previous years), in 2023, the award ceremony underwent a complete restructuring, exemplary of the neoliberal times in which we live: The HFPA was dissolved and a company privatized the award ceremony, creating the “Globe Golden Foundation” and investing in “diversity.”

Today, the jury is composed of 334 journalists specialized in entertainment, from 85 countries (25 of them Brazilian), with 47% women and 60% racial and ethnic minority (26.3% Latinos, 13.3% Asians, 11% Blacks, and 9% Middle Easterners).

In this context, it is clear that, in addition to the intense promotional campaign being carried out by the Salles family and Globo (the film’s producer), “I’m Still Here” aroused sympathy, particularly among those who are even minimally attuned to the juncture in which we live and saw the possibility of the award’s prominence as a way to send a message to the conservatives, reactionaries, and xenophobes of the day.

This is something that could also happen again at the Oscars in early March. But this in no way detracts from Fernanda’s award and much less what makes “I’m Still Here,” in my opinion, a fundamental film to help us think about the difficult times we live in.

Remember, so that it does not happen again

In addition to being a beautiful and very well-made film, “I’m still here” both deserves and must be seen mainly for what is its essence: the denunciation of the deep and irreparable pain caused by the military regime established in 1964 and the struggle, still necessary, for the rescue of memory, justice, and truth in relation to all those who were victimized, directly and indirectly, by the dictatorship. A process that implies, to begin with, the punishment of the regime’s agents.

This is a necessity whose importance was once again exposed by the coup attempt planned by Bolsonaro, the military, and politicians who are nothing more than remnant excrescences of the military regime. This is also reaffirmed every second that one of the former agents of the dictatorship walks unpunished and free through society or that one of the members of the Military Police turns his weapons against the Black or marginalized population, or whenever a follower of the ultra-right practices historical revisionism to exalt the military regime.

“I’m Still Here,” besides being apropos of a time like this, is far from being universally acclaimed or even exempt from criticism. Leaving aside the boycott campaign of the ultra-right (whose evident failure is also to be celebrated), part of the debate about the film has revolved around the “approach” taken by director Walter Salles, both in terms of the “form” of the film and its narrative, considered to be overly focused on the “family” and personal dimensions of the story.

This is something that deserves to be discussed, especially because I believe that this approach has a lot to do with the great strength of the film and the way in which it has managed to dialogue with viewers, including those from other countries, and also because it resulted in a film that fully relied on the performance of actors and actresses who, in the words of Fernanda Torres, in an interview, had to discover “the power of restraining an emotion and perhaps letting the audience complete it for you.”

“Memory, justice and truth”: feminine nouns

As we know, the film is based on the memoirs of Eunice Paiva (1929-2018), wife of Rubens Paiva (1929-1971), a civil engineer and federal deputy for the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB), indicted in 1964, murdered under brutal torture between Jan. 20 and Jan. 22, 1971, after being abducted from his home and then reported as “disappeared.”

Based on the book of the same name, published in 2015, by Marcelo Rubens Paiva (son of the couple and also author of the excellent “Feliz Ano Velho”), the film follows the family between the period immediately prior to Paiva’s “disappearance” and the publication of the report of the National Truth Commission (CNV), in December 2014, including 1996, when, 25 years after the murder, Eunice finally received her husband’s death certificate.

A first “merit” of the film is precisely to keep Eunice at the center of the narrative and not only as “Rubens Paiva’s wife” (played by the always excellent Selton Mello).

Precisely for this reason, the narrative only mentions parts of the career of the politician and businessman, a typical example of a middle-class (upper, by the way) nationalist, whose role in the struggle against the dictatorship came both through his famous speech on Radio Nacional, when the coup was still underway, on April 1, 1964, calling workers and students to resist (even within the framework of “legality”), as well as the way in which, in the following years, he strove to protect persecuted and exiled political prisoners.

Fernanda Torres’ performance is fundamental in “I’m Still Here” precisely because it gives a deep sense of humanity to the profound transformations that took place in Eunice’s life after her husband’s “disappearance.” A woman who has always been attentive, but who, despite never having been insensitive to the political and social struggle nor submissive to “social rules,” lived within the “bubble of alienation” characteristic of her socioeconomic location. This “bubble,” in the film, is symbolized by the home and family environment, not only removed from the real and profound hardships faced by the majority of the population, but also impervious to many other ills of our society, something particularly symptomatic in the “almost invisible presence” of the Black maid, treated “as if she belonged to the family.”

In real life, this story was shattered and shuffled by experiences that include the 12 days she was imprisoned and held incommunicado in the basements of the dictatorship, the years of searching and fighting; the period (between 1971 and 1984) when her family was under military surveillance, or even the permanent pain and absence caused by a body never found.

In this sense, Eunice is among those who literally transformed “mourning into struggle”: Women from different classes and social sectors—such as Clarice Herzog, Thereza Fiel, Ana Dias, and Zuzu Angel (respectively, the widows of journalist Vladimir Herzog and workers Manuel Fiel Filho and Santo Dias da Silva, and the mother of Stuart Angel)—who had to reinvent their lives and put themselves at the forefront of the struggle for “memory, truth, and justice” in relation to the crimes of the dictatorship.

It was a struggle that, in Eunice’s life, also involved a return to university in 1973, where she studied law (at the age of 48), first with the aim of better fighting her battle for memory and justice; then, to act as one of the main defenders of the native peoples, their lands, and their rights.

In the film, some of these facts are only mentioned. Others not even that. And this does not speak against the production either. On the contrary. While it is true that it is “based on real events,” it is not exactly the “facts” (or the “action”, cinematically speaking), or the details of the characters’ lives, or the story that make “I’m Still Here” a great movie. Its strength comes from the way it “helps us think” about something else: the role of memory in the construction of History itself. Something built with enormous poetic charge, especially because Eunice Paiva, who fought so hard for the preservation of memory, lived her last years under the impact of Alzheimer’s disease, whose main symptom is precisely the loss of memories.

Without memory, history remains adrift

I am among those who believe that one of the greatest strengths of cinema is its ability to tell stories through images, words, and sounds that acquire meanings and senses that go far beyond the obvious and the literal, allowing us, regardless of the period they deal with, to reflect on past, present, and future or making us delve into fantasy and fiction to think about reality and humanity.

And it is in this sense that I consider “I’m Still Here” a necessary, beautiful, and very powerful film. It manages to start from a true story, from a concrete experience, to discuss something much deeper, synthesized in a highly poetic way in the sequences that open and close the film.

At the beginning, we see a “drifting” Eunice, floating in the sea, while a helicopter (perhaps carrying a body that would be thrown into the sea) flies over a Rio de Janeiro that is a real “postcard,” which serves as a backdrop for the life of a family that, like so many others of its social stratum, lives in a bubble, like so many others created by the movements of the “sea of history.”

A family, in short, that, despite being affected by the dictatorship and opposing the regime, also, to a large extent, lives “adrift” from History, letting “the ship pass,” as if trying to escape from the memory of the past, in an attempt to maintain a sense of security, harmony, and comfort whose fragility is about to be cruelly and violently demonstrated.

In the last scenes, illuminated by Fernanda Montenegro’s fabulous and moving performance, we have an 85-year-old Eunice, once again “adrift.” But now, because for a decade she has been living with Alzheimer’s disease.

A woman whose gaze, so distant and oblivious to the world, comes to life and strength in an instant, awakened by the television news, announcing the publication of the Truth Commission report (to which she contributed greatly), which, based on 1200 testimonies, documented in terrible and painful detail the crimes against humanity committed by the dictatorship and its agents.

A fabulous moment in cinematographic terms, especially because it is also in this sequence where, through a game of cameras, we see her son Marcelo (Antonio Saboia) as the only “witness” of Eunice’s reaction to the news. Only he “perceives” that, for a second, his mother has anchored in some safe harbor from which she can review the “sea of memories” that, at that moment, seem to explode in her eyes in front of the TV set.

A dialogue of cameras, gestures, and glances metaphorically foreshadows the writing and the title of the book itself. Marcelo “sees” that Eunice is still “here.” Not only beyond Alzheimer’s. Beyond herself. Beyond History. She “is,” at the same time, as a memory of the crimes committed by the dictatorship and as an important force for this memory not to be erased, as they tried to do with her companion, by throwing him into the sea.

Symbolically, it is at this moment that the book is born. And it was this “absent presence” that Salles managed to transfer to the screen, as a reminder that, like all the others whose lives were marked or taken away by the dictatorship, Eunice will only remain “here”; her life will only continue to have meaning if her memory is preserved. If her struggle is not forgotten.

Let other memories come…

Something that drew attention and provoked criticism from many people who have already seen the film has to do with the director’s choices in telling this story, starting with the focus on the Paiva family. As is characteristic of the products of human creativity, this reverberated in both the “form” and “content” of the film.

For example, it is a fact that the staging is rather restricted to the space of the house and family life, represented with an illuminated and harmonious “perfection.” However, it can be said that this device can also be seen as a counterpoint to the dark basements of the dictatorship and, above all, as a “reminder” of the type of “alienation” specific to that family, also determined by its socioeconomic condition.

It is symptomatic, for example, that, however “informed” and unquestionably anti-dictatorial, in the film, the Paiva family at various times sees reality from a distance, something that is emphasized in the scenes in which the “outside world” is recorded through the mediation of a Super 8 camera or through newspapers, radio, and television, creating an illusion of distance that is maintained until it is shattered by the occupation of the house by the repressive forces.

Moreover, Salles’ choices are quite coherent with the aforementioned objectives, since part of the “thesis” defended by the film is the way in which personal and historical memory mix, confuse, and influence each other.

In this sense, it is necessary to salute both Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s text and Walter Salles’ direction, especially because so many other films that have focused on the subject, also based on excellent biographical accounts and even more directly related to the direct struggle against dictatorial regimes, turned out to be dreadful films. Suffice it to recall “What is this, comrade?” (Bruno Barreto, 1997) and “Olga” (Jayme Monjardim, 2004).

This brings to mind a final comment regarding the “necessity” of a film like “I’m Still Here.” Regardless of the questionable quality of the two examples mentioned above, they are part of a very small list of films that seek to explore the dark times of the dictatorship and the struggles waged against the regime.

It is true that there are a number of good and memorable things, such as “Eles não usam black-tie” [They Don’t Wear Black-tie] (1981), “Pra Frente Brasil” [Forward Brazil] (1982), “Cabra marcado para morrer” [Goat marked for death] (1984), “Que bom te ver viva” [How Good It Is to See You Alive] (1989), “Lamarca” (1994), “Cabra-Cega” [Goat-Blind] (2004), ‘O ano em que meus pais saíram de férias’ [The Year My Parents Went on Vacation] (2006), ‘Batismo de sangre’ [Baptism of Blood] (2006), ‘Tatuagem’ [Tattoo] (2013), ‘O dia que durou 21 anos’ [The Day That Lasted 21 Years] (2013) or ‘Marighella’ (2021).

However, considering the dimension of the crimes committed by the dictatorship and the heroic examples of struggle given by the men and women who confronted the regime in the most diverse areas of society (social movements, art and culture, oppressed sectors, etc.), Brazilian Cinema is still far from being the instrument of “memory, justice, and truth” that it could and should be.

This is something, unfortunately, once again determined by “the things of the world”—starting with the agreed way in which our never-completed redemocratization was carried out. To understand how this may have influenced Brazilian film production, it is enough to compare it with the films produced about the Chilean and Argentine dictatorial regimes, which, as a reflection of more radicalized processes of rupture, approach the subject in a much more challenging and comprehensive manner.

Here, the “pact for the transition” followed by the cowardice of all governments since then (including those of the PT [Workers Party]) in the face of the military contributed greatly to the fact that our artistic and cultural production on the subject was also stifled.

The fact that cinema, even though it is an obligatorily collective creative process, is mostly subject to the “rules of the market” does not help the production of films that are more radical in their approach or focus on sectors that have been historically marginalized.

But, this is another story. For now, the only recommendation is that, regardless of new nominations and awards, “I’m Still Here” continues to bring people to theaters. May it continue to help us think. Not least because this is a part of our History that needs to be recalled, in every possible way. Always. Because we cannot allow totalitarian, reactionary, repressive, and oppressive experiences to be repeated. And, we know, this is a threat that, unfortunately, is also “still here.” Not only in Brazil, but all over the world.

Ah, one last note: Pay attention to the fabulous soundtrack, which includes real gems such as “É preciso dar um jeito, meu amigo” (Erasmo Carlos), “A festa do Santo Reis” (Tim Maia), “Baby” (Os Mutantes), “Jimmy, renda-se” (Tom Zé), “Agoniza, mas não morre” (Nelso Sargento and Beth Carvalho), “Pétit Pays” (Cesária Mota) and “Fora da ordem” (Caetano Veloso).

Originally published at www.opiniaosocialista.com.br, 1/7/2025. Translation: John Prieto

Photo: Fernanda Torres accepts Golden Globe award (Rich Polk / Variety)