The merits of “” are known, which has become popular with the public and has been promoting a welcome reconciliation between Brazil and its country. It is true that other recent Brazilian films have virtues and have enjoyed audience and box office success, but Walter Salles’ film moves through a range of themes and markets that we have sometimes slipped into.
“I’m Still Here” offers the classic attributes that bring people to the cinemas: a captivating story, very good performances by actors, with the stars and at a very high level, good photography, a good musical score, script and direction.
I would say, to put it mildly, that it is the best Argentine film made in Brazil. There is no demerit here, on the contrary. The regularity of the Argentine standard is a fact recognized by everyone, including, let’s say, the writer Marcelo Rubens Paiva, author of the book that inspires the production, an admirer of our neighbors’ cinematography, starting with the splendid “The Secret of their Eyes”.
Some ingredients favor the reference. We are in the environment of a white, educated and politicized upper middle class family, with a type of spirited and civilized sociability, traits that can easily take us back to a certain Argentine society and filmography — and that fall within internationally recognizable parameters.
Added to this is the common experience of a dictatorial model that was implemented in South America and brutally interfered with the regime of freedoms and rights, arresting, exiling and taking the lives of thousands of people. This is precisely a wound that Argentine cinema has consistently addressed by interweaving personal, social and political dramas into intelligent and well-designed narratives.
Repairs could certainly be made to the film. Perhaps it uses too much time to expose the daily life of the cool family, in addition to reliving a somewhat clean and idealized Rio de Janeiro — Leblon is almost the Paiva’s private beach. I also heard comments about the 25-year jump in history and about some clichés, in my opinion perfectly acceptable, that reiterate conventions with some dose of melodrama.
These are questions that, in different ways, can always be addressed to the best films. We are not, after all, talking about an irrevocable masterpiece.
Finally, it is worth highlighting what has already been justifiably recognized: Fernanda Torres’ performance is a case in point. I was especially moved by a trait that ultimately lies at the heart of the film, which is the insistence on a vital kind of resistance, represented by the smile.
Eunice Paiva by Nanda Torres, against everything, contemplates us with that smile that is sometimes present, announces itself but does not blossom and sometimes is explicitly summoned to symbolize an irreducible desire not to bend, to place the defense of a dignified life as a strategy non-negotiable of combat. This goes from the photography taken to the report on the final scene.
All circumstances came to smile at “I’m Still Here”, including, paradoxically, the sinister frown, a clear sign of the relevance of this story that alerts and strengthens us.
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