Walter Salles’ 1998 international breakthrough, Central Station, earned an Oscar nomination for the magnificent Fernanda Montenegro. Now in her 90s, the actress turns up toward the end of the director’s first feature in his native Brazil in 16 years, the shattering I’m Still Here (Ainda Estou Aqui), in a role that requires her to speak only through her expressive eyes. What makes the connection even more poignant is that she appears as the elderly, infirm version of the protagonist — a woman of quiet strength and resistance played by Montenegro’s daughter, Fernanda Torres, with extraordinary grace and dignity in the face of emotional suffering.

Many powerful films have been made about the 21 years of military dictatorship in Brazil, from 1964 through 1985, just as they have about similar oppressive regimes in neighboring South American countries like Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. The human rights abuses of systematic torture, murder and forced disappearances represent an...