Walter Salles’s film is a true-life saga of a Brazilian family torn apart by military rule. A former congressman and civil engineer, Rubens, is abducted from his beachfront home in 1970s Rio. His wife (Eunice Paiva, played by Fernanda Torres - who is utterly BRILLIANT) and five children are left reeling… for decades. One day, men with guns arrive at the door and take Rubens to make a statement. Who they are and where he has been removed to remain a mystery. Eunice and her 15-year-old daughter are also questioned (Eunice ends up being kept in a filthy cell and subjected to repeated interrogations over 12 days).
Despite it all, for the sake of her children, Eunice puts on a brave face (understatement) and campaigns for her husband’s safe return. But, over time, there’s a slow realisation that her husband has gone for good (she later hears from an associate of her husband the unconfirmed rumour of Rubens’ death) and that, for the sake of her children, she needs to remain ‘strong’. Eunice ends up deciding to relocate the family to São Paulo and to go back to college (in real life, she went on to become a human rights lawyer). Lots of incredibly poignant scenes that sum up the despair and the horror of it all – including a heart-breaking scene when the youngest of the Paiva children sits on the doorstep, as the last of their possessions are loaded into the car, and finally realises that her father was never coming home.
It’s a brilliant hard-hitting film, brilliantly acted… and you definitely need to see it (Oscar-winning performance by Fernanda Torres?).
Footnote: In Chile, Pinochet was a brutal authoritarian dictatorship that seized power through a coup in 1973, violently suppressing political dissent, implementing severe human rights abuses like torture and disappearances, while also enacting significant economic reforms based on free market principles, causing social and economic disruption for many Chileans (democracy wasn’t restored until 1990).
Footnote: In Brazil, dictatorship reached the height of its popularity (my bold type) in the early 1970s with the so-called ‘Brazilian Miracle’ - even as the regime censored all media, and tortured, killed and exiled dissidents… and yet, despite all this, 20 years later, Bolsonaro was elected Brazil’s president 2019-23 and (according to Google) his government was characterized by the strong presence of ministers with a military background, international alignment with the populist right and autocratic leaders, and was recognized for his anti-environmental, anti-indigenous people and pro-gun policies. He was also responsible for a broad dismantling of cultural, scientific and educational government programmes, in addition to promoting repeated attacks on democratic institutions and spreading fake news… (does this sound vaguely familiar?).
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