by Geoffrey Churchman

This was nominated for this year’s Best Picture Oscar and is much more highly regarded by movie goers than the one that won.

It is based on a true story set in 1970 at the time of military dictatorship in Brazil which began in 1964, with some sequel scenes from later years. Military juntas have been a regular form of government in South America and the one in Brazil lasted until 1985. As authoritarian regimes do, whether Communist or Fascist, Brazil’s one censored all media, and surveilled, arrested, tortured, killed and exiled dissidents.

The movie begins with beach scenes of volleyball and bikini girls in Rio de Janeiro, but the indication that the country’s strong-arm rulers are deeply suspicious of anyone who could be a regime opponent occurs during a police checkpoint stop in a tunnel.

The main subject of the movie is of Rubens Paiva, a former Congressman who does seem to be involved in resistance activities and the screenplay is based on the biography by his son, Marcelo.

Rubens is married with 5 school age kids and the viewpoint of the events is largely that of his wife, Eunice. For a little while we see normal family life but he’s in the crosshairs of the army’s secret police and one day in January 1971, plain clothes army people show up with handguns and take him away, saying no more than he must give a “deposition” to authorities. A little later, Eunice and the oldest daughter also get taken to a prison building and given interrogation. Fortunately, after 12 days they are released, but the father disappears.

The prison is depicted as grim but without it being too horrific, although there is a scene of staff sluicing down the corridor with buckets of water — what do they want to remove, you wonder.

Needless to say, the scene of Rubens waving to Eunice in a window of the house as he gets in his car and drives off is the last she ever sees of him.

The psychological trauma and hardships of Eunice as she tries to find out where her husband is and cope with family life without him is well presented and portrayed, without being overly melodramatic, by lead actress Fernanda Torres and the children (4 girls, 1 boy) also are very creditable. The atmosphere is enhanced by the movie being shot on film which is given a slight haze rather than high definition in post-production to indicate the technology and processing of home ciné film of the time.

For Brazilian audiences there is quite a lot of incidental memorabilia of the era such as posters, LP records, clothing, foods and home decor, some of which was international in nature.

You get the feel of what it’s like to live under an oppressive dictatorial regime that doesn’t care about human rights abuses (NZers experienced that during the Jacinda regime, especially during Covidiocy, of course). Eventually the family learns that the father had been killed not long after his incarceration, scenes set in 1996 and 2014 depict that.

Brazilian films don’t very often make it to general international release, and this is the first from that country to be nominated for Best Picture Oscar. It was also nominated for Best International Film at the 2025 Oscars — which it won — also making it the fifth Brazilian film to receive an Oscar nomination for Best International Film (previously Best Foreign Language Film).

I’m still here (137 minutes, in Portuguese with subtitles) is screening in NZ currently.