In ‘I’m Still Here,’ a family portrait is a form of political resistance

NEW YORK (AP) — In movies, political resistance often takes the form of protest, hunger strike or armed uprising. But in Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here,” it comes in the shape of a defiant smile.

The film stars Fernanda Torres as Eunice Paiva, the wife of Rubens Paiva, a former leftist Brazilian congressman who, at the height of the country’s military dictatorship in 1971, was taken from his family’s Rio de Janeiro home and never returned.

But the focus of “I’m Still Here,” based on the memoir by Paiva’s son Marcelo, is Eunice, the mother of five who was left to remake their family’s life with neither her husband nor any answers for his disappearance. It unfolds as a portrait of a different kind of political resistance — one of steadfast endurance. Eunice refuses the military dictatorship's attempt to break her and her family. When, in one scene, Eunice and her children — by then long without their disappeared father — pose for a newspaper photograph, she tells them to smile.

“The smile is a kind of resistance,” Torres says. “It’s not that they’re living happily. It’s a tragedy. Marcelo recently said something that Eunice said that I had never heard: ‘We are not a victim. The victim is the country.’”

“I’m Still Here,” which opens in theaters Jan. 17, is a profoundly moving story of family life and political oppression. It’s a deeply Brazilian story, made by one of the country’s most acclaimed directors (Salles’ films include “Central Station” and “Motorcycle Diaries”) and starring the daughter of one of the country’s greatest stars, Fernanda Montenegro. She appears late in the film as the older Eunice.

But “I’m Still Here” has taken on added meaning in Brazil and beyond. The film was released on the heels of the presidency of former far-right President , who Brazilian federal police last year to stay in power. (Bolsonaro, who has admiringly called the 1964 military coup “Liberty Day,” has denied any involvement.) In the years that Salles developed the film, he saw numerous other countries, and their citizens, reckoning with the rise of strongmen political leaders.

“When we started to develop the project seven years ago, it was truly about trying to bring light to a past that wasn’t sufficiently focused by Brazilian cinema,” says Salles. “Then, little by little, the political situation shifted to the point that we realized the film was about our present, and also about our future.”

Those reverberations, and the film’s acute sense of humanity, has made “I’m Still Here” and a celebrated Oscar contender in the U.S. At Sunday’s Golden Globes, Torres over a starry field of nominees including Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman. “I’m Still Here” is Brazil’s Oscar submission.

To Torres, Eunice Paiva is a heroine of Greek dimensions: a Penelope for modern times who won’t let the spirit of her family die.

“She’s a great guide, this character, for nowadays,” Torres says. “It’s not about should we be to the right or to the left. It’s about humanity. It’s about the endurance of the family.”

For Salles, the story of the Paivas is particularly personal. Growing up in Rio, he was friendly with one of their children and often visited their teeming, music-filled home.

“I remember a house where the door was always open — very unlikely under military dictatorship,” says Salles. “The windows were always open. Every time I went there, I met people I had never met before. It was a place to which people drifted. Later, I realized this was the Brazil I wanted to live in.”

The 59-year-old Torres, whose father was the actor Fernando Torres, grew up during the dictatorship that lasted until 1985. Her first memories of life under it are of her parents nervously preparing to perform plays for the government censor, who could — and sometimes did — cancel a production days before opening.

Eunice in some ways reminded Torres of her own mother. Both mother and daughter had a history with Salles. One of Montenegro’s most famous roles was her Oscar-nominated performance in Salles’ “Central Station.” The 95-year-old Montenegro is the first and only Brazilian nominated for best actress; her daughter could be the second.

Torres had acted in earlier Salles’ films, “Foreign Land” (1994) and “Midnight” (1998). But she had in recent years starred in popular TV series and written a novel. When Salles sent her the script for “I’m Still Here,” she imagined he was just looking for feedback from a friend. For Salles, though, it ultimately mattered that “I’m Still Here” would be, like its story, a family affair.

“It touched on something so personal that, more than anything else, I needed allies with her sensibility and intelligence and talent to reach the end of the journey,” says Salles.

Salles, guided by his own memories, sought to recreate the lively atmosphere of the Paiva home, where art and movies were freely discussed and someone was usually running out to Ipanema Beach. “I’m Still Here” follows the tragedy of what happens to the Paiva family and this home, but the movie is sustained by the warmth the Paivas fostered despite the military regime.

“We cooked in that house, to the point where Marcelo, the first time he entered the house, said, ‘It smells like my house,’” says Salles. “It was really about not trying to create a fictional family but more about inviting the spectator to spend time with a family I had met personally. It was about capturing life happening.”

Salles’ melodrama-free treatment of the story — another deviation from typical films of political resistance — took adjusting to. The one scene in which Torres, as Eunice, cried, Salles cut. The actress estimates she has just one close-up in the entire film.

“When we were doing it, I was like, ‘Is it going to be good? It’s so simple,’” says Torres. “When I watched it for the first time, I couldn’t remember when I started to cry.”

Instead of following familiar story beats, “I’m Still Here” unfolds with time, as Eunice refuses to allow the Paiva family’s grief to be the defining factor of their lives. Her resistance is stubborn perseverance. It took her 25 years to get a government-issued death certificate for her husband. Finally, in 2014, detailed the killing or disappearing of 434 people by the military regime, with tens of thousands more tortured.

“This may have to do with today’s world. We are faced with losses and the angst of times we don’t fully know what’s going to happen. Will someone knock on your door?” Salles says. “If you somehow sense the magnitude of joy at some point, this may be how you find the inspiration to resist.”