London Film Festival 2024 Review: I’m Still Here – “The film captures the horror of a kidnap disguised as bureaucracy.”

The personal is political in Walter Salles’ latest film, his first back in his home country since 2008’s Linha De Passe. It’s the early 1970s, a few years into the US-backed military dictatorship and domestic life continues under its shadow for the music-loving, middle-class Paiva family

Salles’ knew the Paiva’s as a teenager, and the warm tones and chaotic sounds of those pre-disappearance days are filled with Super-8 images, kids playing football and sunbathing. The beaches of Rio are stunning and full of people enjoying themselves. But the sunshine vibes are quickly interrupted by the presence of helicopters and tanks nearby. Capturing a family moment means smiling at one lens while looking out for another. As the Paiva’s gather for a family photo on the beach – it’s clear this is one of the last snapshots of normality, before their world is shattered for good.

Former congressman Rubens (Selton Mello) is an engineer, but it’s not his building plans that are causing him to have whispered conversations. Some friends have already left to live in exile in London, and his oldest daughter Vera, a politically engaged teenager joins them. Soon comes the knock on the door by some grim-faced men. They are armed, but eerily procedural, telling Rubens he needs to come in for routine questioning.

“I’ll be back before the soufflés ready”, he tries to reassure her. They both know he won’t be. The kids are oblivious, running around while their parents try to keep calm.

The Paiva’s situation is awful, but hardly unique. Thousands of families endured sudden disappearances like that, not just in Brazil, but across Latin America. I’m Still Here is more of a family saga than a political thriller, although there are moments of tension. The film captures the horror of a kidnap disguised as bureaucracy, and Salles’ doesn’t shy away from showing the brutality of interrogations by the regime thugs. The sensory deprivation of hooded captives forced to endure days without daylight, sleeping through the screams of the torture happening nearby is in stark contrast to the sunburst hues of earlier scenes.

Like Monique Gardenberg’s 2003-film Benjamin, Salles is equally concerned with the personal relationships as the political events of the dictatorship era. The minutiae are captured from the memoir Ainda Estou Aqui (I’m Still Here) by Marcelo Rubens Paiva about his father’s disappearance and murder.

The period detail is a tribute to Brazilian life past and present, and the film has a superb soundtrack too, filled with legendary Tropicalia artists like Tom Zé, serving as a reminder that music has (and always will have) the power to amplify resistance.

But the heart of the story is matriarch Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres), a remarkable woman who later became a lawyer, first to seek justice for victims of the military regime, and then to advocate for indigenous rights. The beloved Brazilian actor gives a standout performance throughout. It’s a study in duality – the tension in her jaw is visible as she tries to keep a sense of normality through fear and grief and trying to navigate who she can trust.

Despite days of kidnap (along with one of daughters), Eunice doesn’t break. She’s pragmatic and resourceful, channelling her anger into finding out what happened to Rubens in a whisper-network of the few people she trusts, while moving her family into a smaller place in São Paulo. The latter part of the film shifts gears again to show the Paiva’s at two significant points in the future 1996 and 2014. Although a little sentimental, these later scenes are as colourful as the start, Ruben’s would never be forgotten, but life has been lived fully under the weight of his absence.