By ANA LUIZA SARAMAGO STERN*
The brutality of Rubens Paiva's disappearance is a message that anyone can be a Rubens Paiva in a regime of violence
Fernanda Torres' victory at the Golden Globes is certainly the crowning achievement of the best Brazilian cinema has to offer, of art that breaks barriers, transcends borders, and echoes across the planet. It is the victory of an actress, a director, a team, and a film that tell a story, as good films tend to do.
But not only a story, they tell a life, a character, a mother, a wife, a woman who, from being a housewife, is torn apart by abject and obscure forces. And yet, despite the brutal and extreme violence, the disappearance of her husband and father of her children, the preeminence of the next day, the urgency of her children's hunger, Eunice Paiva rebuilds herself, or builds herself into a stronger, more woman, and continues to be there.
And it is in the simplicity of the unequivocal power of Eunice Paiva's story that the seemingly most pertinent criticisms of the choices made by the screenwriters and director lose their meaning. The film does not describe in detail the Brazilian political reality of those days, does not dwell on the history and deeds of Rubens Paiva, does not delve into the characteristics that are specifically pertinent to those characters. But this is not a case of forgetting or disinterest in these specificities; it is not because it diminishes the story that the film passes over such idiosyncrasies, but on the contrary, because it makes it (Eunice's story) greater than its own characteristics, greater than its characters, greater than its own story, because any story is a story that could happen to anyone.
I didn't want to I'm still here, in my opinion, purposely dwells on the details of a specific regime, of a specific historical moment, of well-defined characters, because it has the merit of dealing with a modus operandi characteristic of any authoritarian regime. The silence about certain details of her story is the transcendence of Eunice Paiva's story to the possibility of the same story being repeated to any Eunice, in any dictatorship. The brutality of Rubens Paiva's disappearance, in the silence about the details of his character, is the message that anyone can be a Rubens Paiva in a regime of violence.
In dark times like today, in a scenario of rising authoritarian ideologies, of extremes, of politicians who relativize the achievements of democracy, the importance of the film I'm still here and its visibility is not confined to a specific story. It tells the life of Eunice Paiva, but in it it tells the reality of what authoritarian regimes are, in any of their guises. In a scenario in which the marriage (of convenience) between democracy and capitalism seems to be being questioned, in which neoliberal flags seem willing to abandon the very liberal premises built over centuries and centuries of struggle, the film transcends the names of its characters to be a reminder of what can happen to anyone when certain limits are crossed, when the Schmittian logic of friend-enemy becomes state policy, when democracy (however flawed it may be) is relativized, and freedom gives way to intransigence.
As long as we can disagree, discuss, listen and be heard, and coexist in a democratic setting, certain guarantees, certain securities, and certain limits remain well protected. However, when the lines of democracy are frayed, when power is aroused by violence, when war (whether by force or psychological) becomes state policy, the disastrous and inexorable results will be cellars, disappearances, fatherless children, tortured wives and mothers, silence and fear.
This is the greatest merit of I'm still here, teach the younger ones, remind the older ones, prove the veracity of their history, and at the same time expand on what is silent about this history, what happens in authoritarian regimes. The film is essential today because it highlights, in all its violence and tragedy, the need to protect and fight for the defense of democratic guidelines, because if we are still here, they (those who hate democracy) are too.
*Ana Luiza Saramago Stern Professor at the Department of Law at PUC-Rio.
Reference
I'm still here
Brazil, 2024, 135 minutes.
Directed by: Walter Salles.
Screenplay: Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega.
Cinematography: Adrian Teijido.
Editing: Affonso Gonçalves.
Art Direction: Carlos Conti
Music: Warren Ellis
Cast: Fernanda Torres; Fernanda Montenegro; Selton Mello; Valentina Herszage, Luiza Kosovski, Barbara Luz, Guilherme Silveira and Cora Ramalho, Olivia Torres, Antonio Saboia, Marjorie Estiano, Maria Manoella and Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha.
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