“Everybody’s in danger” in Oscar winner, “I’m Still Here”
- Peggy Earle
- 27 minutes ago
- 4 min read
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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“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.
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.
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.
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
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
