Dir: Walter Salles | Cast: Fernanda Torres, Selton Mello, Fernanda Montenegro, Valentina Herszage | Brazil 136’
Walter Salles once again mines his country’s rich history of tragic death and disappearance with this harrowing tale that harks back to early 1970s Brazil under military rule.
This is very much a story of human survival and collaboration. The focus is the Paivas, a liberal middle-class family of seven who are enjoying a happy existence in sunny Rio de Janeiro until rain clouds darken their carefree lives. The Paivas are childhood friends of the director and this tinges the fact-based drama with personal poignancy, based on the book by Rubens and Eunice’s son Marcelo.
The father, Rubens Paiva, is a former Labour Party politician who is now active in the underground opposition, organising safe houses and briefing foreign journalists. When the dictatorship turns the heat up a notch Rubens is taken away by the powers that be for questioning ‘for a few hours at most’.
The second half of the film loses its momentum inevitably due to a tortuous wait for news endured by Rubens’ abandoned family. But left to her own devices his wife really comes into her own, and Torres gives an impressive performance, and one that won her a Golden Globe, as the patient wife keeping the family together. And we really feel for them all at this tortured time as the family pulls together and fights for survival right up until the story’s end in 2014. @MeredithTaylor
IN CINEMAS from end February 2025 | FERNANDA TORRES WON BEST PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – drama, at the Golden Globes 2024