IFFK 2024: Walter Salles’s I’m Nonetheless Right here speaks to the present instances

A scene from I’m Nonetheless Right here.

A superb a part of the preliminary half of Walter Salles’s I’m Nonetheless Right here is stuffed with joyful scenes, of a household having enjoyable on the seashore, having fun with get-togethers with mates at residence and dancing to their favorite information. However, simply on the nook of those photos lie the hints of a creeping, violent crackdown led by the army dictatorship that had taken over Brazil within the late Sixties. The opening movie of the twenty ninth Worldwide Movie Pageant of Kerala (IFFK) is Brazil’s submission for the Greatest Worldwide Function Movie class on the 97th Academy Awards.

On the centre of I’m Nonetheless Right here is not any peculiar household, which could possibly be simply swept away by these in energy. Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), a former congressman and a civil engineer, and his household, which is clearly among the many higher crust of Brazilian society, don’t appear to be in a lot of a hazard, or so that they suppose, even once they see army vehicles zooming by the seashore and uniformed males conduct invasive checks on common residents on the roads.

When the midnight knock comes, it doesn’t arrive with a bang, however virtually a whimper, with a couple of plainclothes males taking Rubens away supposedly for a deposition, whereas a few others keep again with the household, sharing their meals. Primarily based on the actual life story of the illegal detention and homicide of dissenter Rubens Paiva by the Brazilian army dictatorship, it turns into a cautionary story to stay vigilant towards autocratic, oppressive forces from gaining energy.

From the purpose of the arrest, it turns into the story of Eunice Paiva, Rubens’s accomplice, who’s an image of resilience and charm all via, as she fruitlessly searches for her husband for years, coming into her personal as a human rights activist combating for extra than simply her husband. Fernanda Torres pulls off some of the immaculate performances of the yr, together with her mom Fernanda Montenegro enjoying her within the outdated age within the emotional epilogue. Salles pushes up all of the levers of emotional depth within the closing half. Regardless of the information of the way it turned out in actual life, we’re until the tip invested in how the household navigates via numerous phases, even many years after his disappearance.

20 years after Salles made The Bike Diaries on Che Guevara and his good friend Alberto Granado’s life-changing highway journey throughout South America, he comes up with a extremely political movie that speaks to the present instances.