The whole lot outdated is new once more, or, as The Who sang within the mockingly titled “Will not Get Fooled Once more” — “Meet the brand new boss, similar because the outdated boss.” On this terrible world, the counterculture turns into company tradition, and the revolution turns into authoritarian rule. The state is overthrown by the opposition get together, who then grow to be the factor they hated — the revolutionary Ortega overthrew the dictatorial Somoza, solely to grow to be a dictator himself; Choibalsan took over from Amar and despatched him to demise earlier than turning into infinitely worse; Rákosi and his ‘salami techniques’ supplanted Tildy, solely to grow to be… properly, you get it.
The political register of existence is a ceaseless nightmare, and so we should group collectively to outlive — assist your loved ones and mates, as a result of the powers-that-be will not. The title of I am Nonetheless Right here displays that type of resiliency and the cyclical nature of state-sponsored struggling. I am Nonetheless Right here is a Brazilian movie from 2024 that’s lastly in theaters nationwide due to its a number of nominations on the 97th Academy Awards — for Greatest Image, Greatest Actress, and Greatest Worldwide Characteristic. It is directed by the favored Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles, who has stirred up acclaim over the previous few many years for movies equivalent to The Bike Diaries, Central Station, and Linha de Passe.
I am Nonetheless Right here is the very best movie he is made in 20 years, and it deserves the acclaim it is obtained, particularly for its lead efficiency from Fernanda Torres. Whereas Demi Moore will seemingly win the Academy Award for Greatest Actress for The Substance, and Mikey Madison is totally deserving of a win for Anora, it is Torres who actually provides probably the most highly effective efficiency of the Oscar-nominated actresses in 2024 due to this stunning, easy movie about household, reminiscence, and energy.
A Household You’d Need to Be a Half Of
I am Nonetheless Right here
- Launch Date
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November 20, 2024
- Runtime
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137 Minutes
- Director
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Walter Salles
- Writers
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Walter Salles, Marcelo Rubens Paiva, Murilo Hauser, Heitor Lorega
-
Fernanda Torres
Eunice Paiva
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Selton Mello
Rubens Paiva
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Fernanda Montenegro
Older Eunice Paiva
-
Valentina Herszage
Vera Paiva
- A strong take a look at how households and mates keep collectively and resist authoritarian destruction.
- Astounding performances from Selton Mello and Fernanda Torres.
- A staggering rating from Warren Ellis is utilized completely along side Walter Salles’ delicate route.
- The movie would not know how one can finish and turns into awkward because of this.
I am Nonetheless Right here has the type of starting that makes you wish to go full Pleasantville and crawl contained in the film display and stay with the phantasm eternally. The primary act of the movie is a lovely instance of “present, do not inform” filmmaking, creating exposition out of natural, on a regular basis interactions. Whereas few households are as pleased because the Paivas, the performances and route utterly persuade us of this household’s contentment.
We watch them on the seaside and of their house, dancing to vinyl data, enjoying backgammon, feeding the pipe dream of a brand new house, consuming and gossiping and laughing and sighing. It is an nearly exhilarating first act, and it successfully ingratiates you with the Paivas household and their mates. You are emotionally concerned, which makes the remainder of the movie that rather more devastating. In spite of everything, we’re reminded by the start textual content and the very first imagery (of Torres swimming within the ocean with a army helicopter dashing by above) that this story takes place on the top of the army dictatorship in Brazil, one thing which would not ease up till the ’80s.
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Becoming a member of O’Brien on the Oscars press convention had been Raj Kapoor (government producer and showrunner), Katy Mullan (government producer), Rob Paine (co-executive producer), Mike Sweeney (producer and author), Jon Macks (author), Michael Bearden (music director), Alana Billingsley (manufacturing designer), and Mandy Moore (supervising choreographer).
Earlier than lengthy, a bunch of mysterious and intimidating males come knocking on the Paivas’ door, and the lovable and huggable patriarch of the household, Rubens, is taken away, ostensibly for a deposition. A number of awkward males stay within the Paivas’ house whereas Rubens is gone. Eunice (Fernanda Torres) does what she will — she tries to humanize them and discover some type of compassion, making them meals and preserving them snug. It would not a lot matter, although, as she and her daughter Eliana (Luiza Kosovski) are the subsequent topics of a “deposition.” When hoods are positioned over their heads, they notice that issues will not be as clear-cut as they’d hoped.
Studying Tips on how to Survive a Dictatorship
The vast majority of I am Nonetheless Right here offers with the truth of a lady — who could or could not have been married to a political ‘downside,’ and should or could not have recognized about it — attempting to maintain herself and her youngsters alive and even pleased regardless of the world round them. Probably the most fascinating facet of that is that aspect of happiness itself. Eunice and her household’s reactions generally depend on a type of “pretend it ’til you make it” aesthetic, which can be mere artifice in some cases, however turns into a pure kind of resilience and even rise up. When a newspaper photographer organizes the household and asks them to not smile, to look unhappy, Eunice rebels with a smile and makes her youngsters snicker in response. To her, despair is a type of defeat.
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That is simply one of many many little methods during which Salles explores the survival strategies of this household. An important of all of them is, properly, household itself, and the methods during which they shield one another. Regardless of how highly effective Eunice is, she could not have survived this era with out her youngsters and her mates, who could as properly be household. The identical may very well be mentioned for anybody within the movie. I am Nonetheless Right here has some jarring time jumps, and every of them reminds us how necessary the Paiva household connection is as life ebbs and flows.
Whereas the script by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega is surprisingly difficult and sprawling, Salles takes a particularly targeted method in his route that permits us to focus on one factor at a time. Whether or not that is a dance in the lounge, a torturous interrogation, a drive by means of a army checkpoint, or a recreation of foosball, Salles’ route feels extremely current and with out distraction. We expertise issues as Eunice does, and with out extra cinematic mechanics.
Apart from Adrian Teijido’s restrained however becoming cinematography, the one actual cinematic software Salles attracts from is music by the nice Nick Cave bandmate Warren Ellis. It is a staggeringly stunning rating, and Salles is supremely clever in how he makes use of it; there are perhaps two moments when it dominates all the things, and they’re the one two moments during which it ought to. It is an ideal complement to the movie, which is nearly probably the most you may ask of a rating.
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The Many Endings of ‘I am Nonetheless Right here’
That emotional energy is barely depleted by the point the movie ends. First, it ends in a delicate but highly effective trend. Then it jumps 25 years into the longer term and, after some time, manages to attain an much more emotional and passable ending. Then it jumps 20 years after that, requiring totally different casting and turning into finally extreme each by way of narrative and emotional influence. (There’s, in fact, a type of brilliance in having Torres’ mom, the nice Fernanda Montenegro of a earlier Walter Salles movie, painting her as an older girl, although.) At 138 minutes, I am Nonetheless Right here might’ve simply trimmed quarter-hour, or it might’ve added quarter-hour to make its epilogues extra significant. Because it stands, the movie’s ending lives in a type of purgatory.
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And but, to reference the start of this text, perhaps that is the purpose. Historical past repeats itself, not simply in the best way that daughters grow to be their moms however in how revolutionaries grow to be the authorities they topple. Brazil could have ended its interval of fascistic Brazilian dictatorship, but it surely was fairly near repeating historical past not so way back, when Bolsonaro and his opposition get together of president Lula da Silva tried to throw him into jail and corrupt the presidential election because of this.
Like many different nations, Brazil appears to be only one second away from a totalitarian dictatorship. Because the U.S. authorities is purged of earlier appointees and changed by Trump loyalists, Individuals could wish to begin being attentive to these sorts of issues, and provides I am Nonetheless Right here a superb, lengthy watch.