"Invisible Adversaries" requires patience, but it's worth it. Only after I realized that the box cover was wrong (it's NOT an alien invasion movie) did I begin to see it as the moving story of a woman who sees the collapse of her intimate relationship in everything around her--the emptiness of the people she sees, the fighting in the world at large. She's also a photographer, and what she does as an artist is mirrored by the filmic technique itself--the film is full of doubling, re-takes, delays, and some stunning images (in one sequence shown as if it were being projected over her bed as she's sleeping, she walks across the town in ice skates).
I found myself comparing it to Surrealist films (especially Maya Deren) and sometimes, for brief moments, even Godard. It's not always an easy movie to take: the lighting seems deliberately un-beautiful, and you won't escape without some bracing intimate moments. It is aesthetically distinctly un-French in its ugliness, but marvelous all the same.
I found myself comparing it to Surrealist films (especially Maya Deren) and sometimes, for brief moments, even Godard. It's not always an easy movie to take: the lighting seems deliberately un-beautiful, and you won't escape without some bracing intimate moments. It is aesthetically distinctly un-French in its ugliness, but marvelous all the same.