Just as World War II keeps surprising us with new stories and perspectives rooted in real events, the Brazilian military dictatorship is one of those dark chapters that both repels and fascinates — precisely because it allows us to understand how the people living within that chaos, or crushed by its consequences, actually experienced it.
I’m Still Here is exactly that kind of film. Based on the memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, the son of one of the people who suffered most under that regime, it offers a powerful way to understand how politicians, artists, and ordinary people navigated a reality defined by state-sponsored repression, restriction, and violence.
In 1970s Rio de Janeiro, former congressman Rubens Paiva is taken from his home by soldiers for what is framed as a simple interrogation — suspected of being a spy or aiding enemies of the state. What should have been a quick deposition quickly becomes the abrupt end of a man who was among the first to stand against the regime in the early months of 1964.
But the film does not tell his story through his eyes. Instead, it turns its gaze toward those who were left behind — toward the people who actually lived through the aftermath. In this case, that means the family.
The screenplay handles time with impressive care. It takes its time placing Eunice at the center, first allowing you to get to know the father, the house, the children, and the friends. Only then does she step into the spotlight — and that choice makes all the difference, because by that point you already understand the full weight of what is about to be lost.
From that moment on, absence becomes the film’s most powerful symbol. It is everywhere. The score fades out after the abduction, leaving silence to take over. The framing cuts off Rubens’ head before he disappears, and then there is Eunice, barefoot on the floor of the house, as if feeling it for the last time.
Everything leads you to understand just how brutal the dictatorship was — without the film ever having to say it outright. It does not tell you what to feel. It makes you live it.
Fernanda Torres is a force of nature. She begins closed off — hands clasped, voice tight — and gradually transforms into someone who has no choice but to become stronger, managing the family alone, handling the finances, all while pushing back against the same state that took her husband.
There is a scene where she is counting money in a small room, facing a mirror. The camera uses the reflection because there is no other way to frame her — as if even the physical space is not large enough to contain everything she is carrying.
And when the film finally shows us who Eunice Paiva truly was, you understand how this woman became a symbol in the fight to reclaim the historical record of what happened during the dictatorship.
She was someone who had to learn to use pain as fuel. And when a person who was already strong begins to use that strength at full capacity, the result becomes something else entirely. The film plants this early. When Marcelo finds a stray dog and wants to keep it, he does not ask his mom — he already knows that is a lost cause. He goes to his dad. His dad asks what Eunice said, and Marcelo makes something up, saying she told him to ask.
From the very beginning, it is clear that Eunice is the true foundation of this family. And once the story locks in on her — already under the shadow of Rubens’ absence — the film takes on an almost psychological horror tone.
We know what happened. But the tension is in everything, everywhere, because we understand that is exactly how it was back then. The violence and oppression were all around — on the street corner, in a phone call, in the evening news. The state was watching from every direction.
And just when it feels like there is nothing left to wring out of you, the film jumps forward in time, and Fernanda Montenegro walks onto the screen.
Just thinking about those few minutes she is on camera is enough to give me chills all over again. Montenegro closes out a flawless film with a single look — in one of the most devastating, symbolic, and gut-wrenching scenes I have ever watched.
In one simple look, you feel an entire life: the fight, the resistance, the grief, the victories, the loneliness, the decades-long effort to give the man she loved a dignified end, and the relentless push to make the state acknowledge the atrocities it committed. I’m Still Here is the kind of devastating film that does not need to raise its voice to demand your attention, because what matters most is exactly what is left unsaid, what is left unshown.