History comes to the living room,” said the author Philip Roth, summing up the ideal of all historical fiction, which is to show how big events impact daily lives and real people. Roth was specifically talking about his own later novels (American Pastoral; I Married a Communist) but his description applies just as easily to I’m Still Here, an outside bet to scoop this year’s Best International Feature Oscar. Directed by Walter Salles, the veteran Brazilian filmmaker behind Central Station and The Motorcycle Diaries, it spins the tale of the true-life Paiva family whose happy, middle-class existence is upended by the country’s military dictatorship. In this case, it transpires, history comes not only to the living room but the downstairs hall, the kitchen and the kids’ bedrooms as well.
Salles’s drama is adapted from a book by Marcelo Paiva, the family’s eldest son. But it’s also based on the director’s first-hand experience. Salles knew the Paivas as a child, was a frequent guest at the Paivas’ home and credits the family with providing his political education. So he’s recreated their Rio beachfront house exactly as he remembers it and approaches their story with the care and compassion one would expect of a trusted friend and confidante. His film’s an insider’s account, the equivalent of embedded journalism, and is all the better – and the worse – for that.
