People are always on a journey in the films ofWalter Salles.
And is never seen again.
Its a pleasure to talk about the film, he said.
Walter SallesGetty
Even more so after it took us seven years to do it.
DEADLINE: When did you settle onIm Still Hereas your next project?
When I was 13 years old I met the middle sister of those five kids from the Paiva family.
‘I’m Still Here’Alile Onawale
That house was almost the reverse-angle image of a country under military dictatorship.
I never went into that house without meeting five or six people I had never bumped into before.
Somehow, that house still embodied the possibility of the free country that we had been until 1964.
I learned a lot from that house as a kid.
When I read his book, I was completely shaken by it.
That was when I decided that ithadto be my next project.
So, to answer your question, I had developed three or four different screenplays before embracingIm Still Here.
Those screenplays never seemed to fully translate what Brazil was becoming [in those years].
Similarly, here, the personal journey of the Paiva family is intermingled with the countrys changing identity.
DEADLINE: It seems like theres a lot that you left out from the book.
Is that the case?
In this sense, what we embrace in the film is the core of the book.
From that moment on, she has to find ways to override her loss and her grief.
A form of resistance that even a dictatorship couldnt suppress.
Theres something constantly brewing inside her, like a volcano that never erupts.
So, we stayed very close to thecoreof the book.
DEADLINE: Why did you think of Fernanda for the role?
It was a moment where almost literally one million Brazilians, and especially young people, fled Brazil.
We became a country of expatriates at that point.
We shot that film in black and white, in four weeks, over three continents.
It was a film [about] our youth.
We did a second film together calledMidnight, a film for [TV station] Arte.
Fernanda is the only actress, I believe, that could have done that.
Its a little bit like walking between two very high buildings on a tightrope.
Fernanda enlarged that artery.
DEADLINE: What was it about Selton that you made you want him for the role of Rubens?
He was always at ease.
And the fact is, I never forgot that man in real life.
Perhaps it was because he was the first father of friends of mine who was imprisoned and assassinated.
So, RubenstherealRubensechoes to this day.
I never forgot him, and so I wanted this character to echo through the film.
Its also about a country that was robbed of a possible future.
This film is about an absence that lingers throughout the second and third act.
DEADLINE: What rules did you lay down for the filming?
Were there any limits you set yourself, any tasks you set yourself?
SALLES:Yes, several.
Chronology is truly determinant.
What we soon understood is that a military dictatorship impacts language itself.
The narrative becomes much more subjective.
That intimacy is also something that gets lost when the police come into the house.
DEADLINE: How did that affect your visual approach?
The camera just blends with them and blends with the bodies.
There was no separation between generations.
The opposite of my house.
My house was much squarer and much less interesting.
DEADLINE: Is it significant that one of the Paivasdaughters has a Super 8 camera?
This is why Super 8 became such an important narrative tool at the beginning of the story.
Theres no artificial grain, theres nothing fake.
We worked in an analog manner in a way that was very organic to the story.
There were very few takes.
I would say that the liturgy of cinema was pretty much at the center of this entire shoot.
DEADLINE: Did that way of working ever throw up any surprises?
From that moment on, the idea of subtractionof subtracting elementswas central to what we did.
Theres the subtraction of light, when the windows and the curtains are closed.
Theres the suppression of sounds, because the sounds from the streets and from the beach are now muffled.
And you dont hear music.
Theres no more records playing on the turntable.
The whole logic of that house is inverted.
My reference for that part of the film was a Danish painter called Hammershi.
DEADLINE: It certainly feels very personal.
Is this precisely how you remember Brazil in those days?
We soon realized that it was impossible.
That stops when they are interrupted by a roadblock inside a tunnel.
That, for me, was really central to the book.
The book was not only about loss, it was about the reinvention of a family.
Now, led by Eunice, they had to restructure their lives.
That was very central to me.
Eunice and Rubens will not be forgotten.
