In praise of a discreet heroine against fascism

In his first film as a director sinceOn the road (2012), Walter Salles connects with those titles of the eighties that denounced the horror of dictatorships in Latin America. Even though I'm here The film is based on the true story of the disappearance of engineer and former politician Rubens Pavia in Brazil in the 1970s. But instead of focusing on Pavia's militant career and trying to clarify the details of his kidnapping, Salles focuses on the reaction of his wife and mother of his five children, Eunice, played by Fernanda Torres (nominated for an Oscar for best actress). The film thus highlights how Pavia's missing status affects his surroundings, while tracing how terror incurs in the daily life of an ordinary, well-off family.

Salles does not intend to make a general overview of the political events in Brazil at the time, and makes the Pavias the concrete echo chamber of this period, from when they live happily in their house facing the sea in Rio de Janeiro until they become the target of the military government. Through the figure of Eunice, Even though I'm here The film celebrates another form of anti-fascist resistance, that of a discreet heroine who, without overstepping the boundaries of what is expected of a mother and wife, remains steadfast in her search for her husband's whereabouts and in protecting her children's joy of living, while experiencing a process of political awareness. Salles does not escape a certain conventionalism in his approach, but achieves a film that is coherent in point of view, and sober, like its protagonist, when it comes to dealing with a rebellious situation. However, as a character, Eunice is too exemplary and one-size-fits-all. Except in the final scene, in which Torres' mother, Fernanda Montenegro (the protagonist ofCentral Station of Brazil), to drive the story home with restrained emotion.