“Everybody’s in danger” in Oscar winner, “I’m Still Here”

BLU-RAY REVIEW / SDR SCREENSHOTS

Oscar-nominated actress Fernanda Torres plays Eunice Paiva, a mother of five children, whose husband, ex-Brazilian congressman Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), has been taken away for interrogation. She and her second-oldest daughter, Eliana, are also taken in for questioning.

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SDR screenshots courtesy of Sony Picture Classics and click the jacket for an Amazon purchase

“I’M STILL HERE”

Blu-ray; 2024; PG-13 for thematic content, some strong language, drug use, smoking, brief nudity

Best extra: “Interviews”

BRAZILIAN DIRECTOR/PRODUCER Walter Salles (“Central Station,” The Motorcycle Diaries”) brings us an understated, yet extremely powerful adaptation of a memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, with “I’m Still Here.”

Set in 1970 Rio de Janeiro while Brazil was under an oppressive military dictatorship that lasted for some 20 years, the unsettling true-life-based plot may, for some viewers, evoke parallels to the political climate in America.

The plot centers on the upper-middle class Paiva family. The apparently happy lives of architect and ex-congressman Rubens (Selton Mello), his wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres), and their five children are upended when Rubens is arrested and taken away for interrogation by plain clothes soldiers. The pervasive military presence and tense mood of the country combine to make Eunice frightened of what might be happening to her husband, whom she had seen taking secret phone calls, and heard speaking with friends against the government.

(1&2) The Paiva family enjoys time together at the beach in Rio de Janeiro, while their son, Marcelo (Guilherme Silveira), finds a stray dog. (3-5) The oldest daughter, Veroca (Valentina Herszage), captures some home movies while hanging out with her friends. During their drive home, they are stopped and intimidated at a police checkpoint. 

Eunice and her second eldest daughter Eliana (Luiza Kosovski) go to the police station to inquire about Rubens, after which they, too, are detained and terrorized by the army, until they’re eventually released. The film covers Eunice’s efforts to maintain some kind of normalcy for her children as she pursues a decades-long search for information about her husband, whose fate had not been revealed.

Over the years, Eunice becomes more educated about, and active in, the political situation in Brazil, but it is not until the 1990s that she’s finally able to get some closure about Rubens. Torres carries the film with an extraordinarily quiet intensity, displaying why she earned a Golden Globe for her performance, and why the film won the Academy Award for Best International Feature. Look for Torres’ real mother, Fernanda Montenegro (“Central Station”), as the older version of Eunice. As has become typical of other modern true story-based films, “I’m Still Here” ends with photos of the real Paiva family appearing as the credits roll.

(1) Family and friends gather for the going-away party for Veroca, who’s moving to London, with a family that wants to get away from the Brazilian military dictatorship. (2&3) Plain clothes police arrest and detain Rubens (Selton Mello), a former congressman. (4) Eunice comforts her daughter Eliana (Luiza Kosovski).

VIDEO

Salles and cinematographer Adrian Teijido (“Narcos” TV series) purposely captured the footage on old-school 35mm (1.85:1 aspect) and Super 8mm for the family home movies, to depict the stories' memories. “Not only did Walter want to shoot on film, but he also made it clear he wanted to have texture, real film grain,” Teijido says during an interview for the Kodak website, which provided the film stock.

It’s the first time in a decade that Teijido has shot a feature film on 35mm, and he considers “I’m Still Here” the most important he’s ever made. “It has brought the issue of military dictatorship and especially those who disappeared, back into the political spotlight and the attention of the younger generation.”  

This important Brazilian film would’ve been a perfect candidate to be released on 4K with HDR – especially since everything was scanned and mastered in TRUE 4K. Maybe Sony will give it a second chance on the higher resolution format?

One of the challenges of shooting on 35mm, which was filmed in chronological order, the film had to be transported daily from Brazil to Paris for the photochemical process. It then took from eight to ten days to review the dailies back in Brazil.

The Tungsten film stock (500T & 200T) gives the imagery a certain organic quality through its color palette and varying film grain structure.

AUDIO

The Blu-ray provides the original six-channel Portuguese DTS-HD soundtrack, with English subtitles. I only wish the studios and the 4K/Blu-ray players provided the option to increase or decrease the size of the subtitles. For my setup, the type is too large, but I can move the subtitles and decrease the brightness.

The dialogue-driven storyline is front and center with numerous Brazilian tunes that set the mood, including the iconic “It’s Necessary to Find a Way, My Friend” from Erasmo Carlos. Other timely gems are included from Juca Chaves, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Tom Zé and Os Mutantes. There is also a good dose of environmental effects sounds and overhead helicopters.  

(1&2) Eunice and her daughter Eliana are detained, interrogated, and imprisoned for days. (3&4) Eunice is finally released, takes a long shower, and gets a welcome hug from her daughter, Nalu (Bárbara Luz).

EXTRAS

The bonus features on this Sony Pictures Classics Blu-ray are quite sparse. “Characters” is comprised of each of the main actors describing the roles they play. “Actors” has Torres, Mello, Valentina Herszage, and Bárbara Luz discussing the message of the film, and its current relevance in present-day Brazil.

The “Interviews” section contains the most meat, with contributions by Torres, Kosovski, Cora Mora (Babiu) and Guilherme Silveira (who plays Marcelo). Torres reveals that when Salles contacted her for the part of Eunice, she was surprised as she had thought her career in his films was “already buried” after her 1995 performance in “Foreign Land.” She says she “hadn’t worked with a delicate material in a long time.”

Torres read the script and found it “touching, and that it created a connection to today’s Brazil.” Making the film was “a deep experience,” including having the opportunity to work with her mother. For Torres, “It’s the film of my maturity.” She believes it was worthy of the real Eunice Paiva’s story, while hoping “we didn’t betray her with cheap melodrama.” Mora, who plays the youngest daughter Maria, notes that she had really lost a tooth a week before the scene in the movie in which she’s supposed to lose one. The tooth we see in the film is hers.

— Peggy Earle

(1) Eunice discusses Rubens’ disappearance with friends. (2) Increasingly frantic, she confronts some policemen parked a few doors down from her home. (3&4) After years of fruitless searching, Eunice decides to move on with her life and relocates her family from Rio to São Paulo. 

SPECS

• 50 GB disc

• TRUE 4K mastering, but downconverted to 1080p for this presentation.

• Captured on 3-perf 35mm film stock, using the Aaton Penelope camera with Panavision Primo lenses and the ARRICAM LT camera with Leitz lenses.

• Video bitrate: Average in the low 30 Megabits per second range, with a running time of 137 minutes.

• Academy Awards: nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress, and won Best International Feature

• Cinema Brazil Grand Prize: Winner of the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, Best Editing, Best Music, Best Cinematography, Best Make-Up

• Rotten Tomatoes: Top Critics’ 98 percent, Audience 97 percent

• Metacritic: Critics 85 percent; User score 9.1

 (1) In 1996, Eunice was given the death certificate for her husband, Rubens, who died on February 23, 1971. She talked with the press afterwards. (2) Eunice, daughter Babiu, and son Marcelo go through a box of family photographs. (3) At a family gathering in 2014, Eunice started losing her memory. The role was played by Brazilian actress, Fernanda Montenegro, the mother of Fernanda Torres. Son Marcelo, a celebrated author, talks about writing the family memoir, which became the book “Ainda Estou Aqui” (I’m Still Here).