The Invisibles
3rd German Film Week

Film ReView

The Invisibles tells the stories of Jews who survived in Berlin in hiding during the Holocaust, even after the declaration of Nazis that the city is officially free of them, and intersperses these narratives with interviews with the actual survivors and footage of the war. Four of them share their personal experiences: Cioma, an art student who uses his skills in forging passports, thereby helping others escape the city; Eugen, an attractive teenager forced to move from one family to another to save his life, always at the mercy of strangers; Hanni, a young lady who dyes her hair blonde so as not to be mistaken as Jew and wanders the streets of Berlin constantly cautious; and Ruth, a woman who pretends to be a war widow to be able to go out and eventually finds herself serving Nazis in an officer’s home. Their paths do not cross, but they all share the horror and terror of the war, and having survived it, having lived to tell the tale, their stories provide the film with undeniable emotional power.
 
The integration of the accounts of Holocaust survivors into the film, potent and gripping in their raw sincerity, is the soul of the film. Their interviews make up the narrative structure and flow, the centre from which the dramatization, compellingly told and acted, takes its cue. Viewers who have read and seen many Holocaust stories will find The Invisibles too familiar, even derivative, but in one of history’s darkest moments, clearly, no two stories are the same, no two Jews escaping Nazi persecution have the same story to tell. The film is rich in details (the forgery done by Cioma quickly comes to mind) and boasts elegant art direction, but what it manages to impress on the audience is the universal virtues of kindness and humanity in the gravest of times, the triumph of goodwill amid evil, the hope that springs eternal — principles that never look or feel iffy or clumsily handled in the film. When the viewers learn about what has happened to the four survivors in real life, after hearing them talk about their own experiences, it is hard to hold back tears.

- Richard Bolisay

Richard Bolisay is a writer and film critic based in Manila. His essays on cinema have appeared in various publications online and in print. He is a participant of the Berlinale Talent Press and Locarno Critics Academy, and has been part of the jury of, among others, the Hong Kong International Film Festival. 
Follow him on Twitter @richardbolisay.