Powerful, concerning, long, and justified in its length. I’m Still Here worked on waves of tension and sedation… especially when we get to the powerful ending that reminds us of the impermanence of memory and life.

It’s set in 1970 Brazil during a time of military dictatorship. Life seems to be going on just fine for a husband, wife, and their five kids. Lazy days at the beach, everyday work, and maybe something a little undercover for the dad. When the goon squad shows up at their door, a lifetime of crime and recrimination results.

This is a tale of how dictatorships ruin lives and families… which seems like the most obvious thing in the world to say until you see it done in such an average life in Rio. To such an average looking family. It almost makes you think “it can’t happen here” or something <sneaks a peek out a window>.

The film doesn’t have the feel of an angry polemic… no melodrama or shouting to the heavens over cruel injustice. Bad things happen but they feel real, concrete, and mundane. This is someone’s job and it’s bureaucratic and efficient… and if you fight back, you might be disappeared too.

Which is to say there’s a lot of downtime in between the State enforcing its will. This isn’t what we’d think a police state would look like and yet, here we are. There’s multiple time skips that show how such forces can fade and yet how their scars linger. The final act feels at first like a bit of extraneous conclusion until it hits hard and we’re allowed to remember all the little moments, the less dramatic moments, that we’d seen over the past two+ hours.

I’m Still Here is a good, thoughtful, grim, and sad film. Worth the runtime and worth the gaze into autocracy.

Score: 86