Les Invisibles (2012)
Directed by Sébastien Lifshitz

Film Review

As the debate over gay marriage continues to rage throughout the western world, an over-inflated typhoon fuelled as much by blind prejudice as ignorance, Sébastien Lifshitz's latest film could hardly have been better timed and provides further weight for the right of same sex couples to marry if they choose.  It is an issue that has been particularly controversial in France and has seen a resurgence of the homophobic hysteria that came about at the height of the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s.  'Mariage pour tous' is something that not everyone is keen to endorse in supposedly modern liberal France, and Lifshitz's film provided a timely contribution to the poisoned polemic, showing the human consequences of the kind of anti-gay discrimination that has recently come under the spotlight.

Sébastien Lifshitz first came to prominence with his daring debut feature Presque rien (2000), a partly autobiographical film recounting the first amorous experiences of a vulnerable young gay man.  Since, he has garnered further acclaim with his documentary La Traversée (2001), in which a friend of his attempts to track down his missing father, and Wild Side (2004), a mixed-race ménage-à-trois drama involving a transsexual.  Far less provocative than Lifshitz's previous films, Les Invisibles is a sensitive and humane work that confronts us with the banality of homosexuality, the love that dares not speak its name.  Through the testimony of gay men and women born in the 1920s and 30s, the film provides a moving account of how a stratum of our society has been sidelined, misunderstood and abused by the majority, and how, as a consequence, they have struggled to find fulfilment and happiness in their lives.

Over an eighteen month period, Lifshitz interviewed around seventy people, but whittled this down to half a dozen very different personalities that span the entire social spectrum.  By allowing his participants to speak freely in front of the camera, unprompted and strangely at ease as they do so, Lifshitz delivers a fascinating portrait of a generation that was denied many of the freedoms we now take for granted and for whom the only option was to pretend to be something they were not within a society that could not accept their true identity, or else to run away and seek happiness elsewhere, in rural backwaters or foreign climes.  One working class man recalls how he was expelled from the French Communist Party for being gay; a woman from a more privileged milieu tells us how social pressures forced her to marry and have children, even though she knew all along that she was a lesbian.  Some of the anecdotes are humorous, others are heartrendingly poignant.

The film's title has a double significance.  In their youth, the participants in the film were unseen because society refused to accept them on account of their sexual orientation.  Now, in their declining years, they are invisible because of a more insidious social phenomenon - age discrimination.  How often is anyone over the age of seventy given the chance to speak into a microphone and talk about his or her life experiences?   The most radical aspect of Les Invisibles is not that its contributors are openly gay, but rather that they have lived at least six decades on Earth.  From their colourful accounts of the sexual revolution, in which some of them took an active part, and tragicomic accounts of their first romantic stirrings in the 1940s and 50s, the participants can hardly fail to engage our sympathies with their candour and eloquence.  And how much more illuminating are their reflections on life and love than the incoherent ramblings of the latest teen idol.

Beautifully filmed in Cinemascope, Les Invisibles is as much a treat for the eyes as it is for the heart and the intellect, the stunning rural and coastal landscapes investing the film with a lyrical charm that perfectly complements the montage of personal stories.  Whilst it is evident that all of its participants have been adversely affected by society's attitudes towards them, it is equally apparent that they have all enjoyed rich and contented lives.  They have found a way around the prejudice of others and been able to live the romantic idyll, albeit often much later in their lives than they would have liked.  In his most accomplished film to date, Sébastien Lifshitz not only delivers the most intelligent insight into the experiences of a marginalised minority but also makes us aware of the prejudices that still taint our society - prejudices that are now painfully evident as the latest attempt for equality before the law is fiercely resisted by those who continue to regard same sex relationships as a dangerous aberration.  Les Invisibles reassures us that we have come a long way over the past half a century, but it is also clear that we still have some way to go before we can claim to be a truly tolerant society.  'Vive la différence' feels like an empty slogan in France at the moment.

Film Synopsis

They are men and women born between the two wars.  The only thing they have in common is that they are homosexuals who chose to live their lives as they wished, at a time when they were censured and rejected by society.  They loved but they also had to fight, for the right to love.  Today, they recount their rebellious lives, in which their desire to fit in with society was challenged by their need to find personal fulfilment and happiness.  They were afraid of nothing...