Ainda Estou Aqui [I'm Still Here] (2024)

I’m on my Oscar prelims ish, was very excited to see this movie! Must honestly say that this movie did not disappoint.

Did not know anything about this movie beforehand, didn’t even know it was a true story. As someone having very little knowledge of Brazilian history; was very intrigued to learn about all this history. I’ve watched many adaptations of hard times in other countries, and this story is just as powerful as a Narcos or a Griselda and it shows how there is messed up politics and corruption that doesn’t revolve around drugs, pure threats to a dictatorship is enough for fascists to go crazy. The story is amazing, the script is amazing, the acting is amazing. Murilo Hauser & Heitor Lorega were in their bag with the screenplay. The time of events flow seamlessly and, even though the pacing can be a little slow for the casual audience, the story is serviced first and the story allows the characters to react and grow within each scene, you literally see the children grow through trauma before your eyes. With an adaptation of real events, I don’t feel like that is something done well all the time.

The character work is bomb, they don’t villainize a child to make her seem like a brat, this is an impossible situation, and you have empathy for the family. The children are great, but the reason I’m here is Fernanda Torres. She transcends time and space to recreate the greatness of Eunice Paiva. Mind you, the movie is adapted from a memoir written from her real-life son, but that’s a conversation for another day, Eunice Paiva is the hero. Torres delivers a majestic performance, not something of intense emotion and outbursts that would stereotypically induce an Oscar nod, rather she shows a calm storm of a character, and it matches the pacing of the movie perfectly. She truly expresses the pure mass of emotional strength and being the absolute anchor for the family. The strength she emits in the 2^nd act, onward, in the film is something incredibly difficult to achieve. She isn’t screaming and tearing up (overacting) she shows power without showing power. Fernanda Torres deserves to be here in the upper echelon of Oscar performances in my opinion. Her beauty and trauma should be preserved and studied for acting classes. Will she win best actress this year? Most likely not, with the Golden Globes, SAG AFTRA awards not really going her way, I don’t see it, but this year is wide open honestly.

On the actual movie aesthetic, the choices they do is chef’s kiss. I do wish I saw this on 35MM film, they do play with that bs filter when showing Latin countries, but they play with it through a super 8 and man is it creamy on the eyes. The set and costume design also ate, it really looked like what 1970’s Brazil would look like. The scenes at the beach and at the prisons, both are equally jarring on opposite spectrums. Which goes with the visual themes, everything starts with the happiest of families until their worlds are torn apart for literally no reason. When it comes to criticisms, I think Warren Ellis could have done better with the musical score but at the same time I acknowledge having no ear for Portuguese themed music. A lot of scenes where I felt no music would have serviced the interrogation scenes better, there is horror themed music. Also, the pacing for the last 20 minutes of the film is really off because of it being so different from the first 90 percent of the movie, the context is story essential but the film jumps around a lot in the first parts of the movie, for it to suck doing that at the end was off putting.

Ainda Estou Aqui is a moving story with a killer lead performance. A strong contender for Best International Film. For cinematic lovers, this is absolutely worth your time.

🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2