Director Karim Aïnouz
Director Karim Aïnouz with Fernanda Montenegro
INVISIBLE LIFE (A Vida
Invisível)
A
(aka: The Invisible Life Of Eurídice Gusmão)
Brazil Germany (139 mi) 2019
‘Scope d: Karim
Aïnouz
Aïnouz, who directed the unconventional MADAME SATÃ (2002)
about the anguishing life of a drag queen which won the top prize at the
Chicago Film Festival that year has also directed The
Silver Cliff (O Abismo Prateado) (2011) and Futuro
Beach (Praia do Futuro) (2014), all films expressing vividly detailed
characterization and rich visualization, has made a period film set in the 50’s
about the condition of women in a nation infested with sexist attitudes, using
a classical style of filmmaking reminiscent of Italian films in the 50’s and
60’s, particularly the explosively powerful performances of Anna Magnani
working with Rossellini, Visconti, or Pasolini in MAMMA ROMA (1962), which
feels like fertile territory for this director. Winner of Best Film from
Un Certain Regard at Cannes, dubbed a “tropical melodrama,” this highly
stylized film has a novelesque scope, like something akin to Fassbinder or
Douglas Sirk, adapted from the 2015 novel by Martha Batalha entitled The Invisible Life Of Eurídice Gusmão,
interweaving remarkable stories of quiet celebration that women lead away from
men, whose cruel indifference and feeble narrow-mindedness has squashed any
value or real meaning in their lives, relegated to a “history of
invisibility.” Given that Brazil is one of the countries in the world
with the largest number of single mothers and crimes of violence against women,
this film offers a particularly potent message to Brazilian women, which is
exceedingly relevant now, given the ultra-racist, homophobic and misogynistic
views of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Arguably the best Brazilian
film seen in decades, ravishingly beautiful, literally saturated in the lush
imagery of cinematographer Hélène Louvart with a positively elegant classical
score from Benedikt Schiefer, along with luxurious piano passages from Liszt, Grieg,
and Chopin. The film opens in Rio de Janeiro, 1950, with such idealized
hopes from inseparable sisters Eurídíce (Carol Duarte) age 18 and Guida (Julia
Stockler) age 20, seen sitting by the shoreline on the edge of a tropical
forest overlooking the bay. Brimming with the confidence of having their
whole lives in front of them, Guida races up the hill barefoot, rebellious and
free, while Eurídíce trailing behind gets lost in the incredible sensuality of
the setting. Living in the comfortable home of their parents surrounded
by tropical trees, with a strictly conservative father Antonio (António
Fonseca) and quietly submissive mother Ana (Flávia Gusmão), Eurídíce dreams of
becoming a conservatory-trained pianist in Europe while Guida dreams of love.
Their parents on the other hand dream of marrying them off as quickly as
possible in order to alleviate expenses. Their home life is busy yet
happy, especially the thoroughly enchanting music Eurídíce plays on the piano,
amusingly claiming she simply can’t make her hands stop to come to dinner.
Expanding the coming-of-age saga into more mature years,
Guida sneaks out of the house to attend a party, meeting a Greek sailor that
whisks her off her feet, eloping with him to Greece in grand style, discovering
a cadre of women there just waiting for him, discovering only after she’s
pregnant what a lying cheat he is, dropping everything and returning back to
her home where her still irate father fumes with resentment, disclaiming her as
a daughter before kicking her out of the house just moments after she arrives,
sending her searching through the alleyways for shelter, but she’s an
enterprising young woman, able to stand up to challenges, even the most
difficult. She begins writing letters to her sister, sent through her
mother who she suspects will read them, hoping they find their way to Eurídíce
who she’s been told is studying in Vienna at a music conservatory. The
letters are filled with effusive praise, but also an adoration for her absent
sister who she longs to see again, not revealing much about her own life, just
excited to reconnect with her younger sister. The letters, a poetic
device also used in Alice Walker’s The
Color Purple, reveal interior territory for Guida, who continually gets no
response, while the gorgeous piano playing heard throughout the film allows an
interior pathway inside Eurídíce’s secret world, as she never left for Europe,
instead performing the dutiful daughter routine, marrying a man suggested by
her father, Antenor (Gregório Duvivier), the smug and excessively dull son of a
business partner, much like her father, sacrificing her dreams for the good of
the family, seen brutalized on her wedding night, which apparently gives her
husband the legal right to violently rape her. This kind of raw
physicality is altogether missing in classic American melodrama. Guida
meanwhile is seen working the bars for tips and sexual favors, with both
quickly getting pregnant. While Eurídíce hopes it doesn’t interfere with
practicing for her conservatory entrance examination, but it clearly does,
forced to spend her time performing menial housework duties, cooking and
cleaning up after others, leaving her little time of her own, quickly losing
focus on the difficult Liszt rhapsodies she’s trying to learn, Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody
no.2 P.1 - YouTube (4:11), played by Russian-American pianist Olga Kern, and
Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2 P 2.
(7:43). Her career hopes shattered,
caught in a loveless marriage, the future she envisioned is of little
consequence to the two men that matter the most, her husband and her father,
where her emotional connection to the piano means nothing whatsoever to either
one of them. Guida, meanwhile, has one of the most wrenching birth scenes
imaginable, seen returning to the bar the very next day in one of the most
remarkable transitions, an unforgettable scene that reminds us just how much
women endure. In a patriarchal society, the fate of both women has been
decided by their father, a cruel man of no imagination, who only thinks of
himself, caring nothing at all for the hopes and aspirations of his daughters.
Guida’s letters form the narrative centerpiece of the film,
each one of them dated, forming a time line for viewers, perhaps growing more
desperate over time, never once hearing a response, yet retaining her
devotional love and admiration, if only to remind herself that her sister
exists. These letters are a crushing indication not only of what’s
missing, but what’s been lost in their lives, as each has been led to believe
by their father that the other is a huge success off in Europe somewhere and
can’t be reached, even though they’re living in near proximation to one
another. A scathing critique on how men treat women, with both
sisters forced to make decisions against their will, the lofty dreams at the
outset have been reduced to the tiny spaces of their lives, with Guida
inhabiting a backwater shack with an older women named Filomena (Bárbara
Santos), living in a distant black and impoverished community, a sharp reminder
of the racial class differences that still define Brazil, while Eurídíce, the
victim of an arranged marriage, continues to slave away for her husband and
child, neither of whom she asked for, eventually excelling in that sought-after
conservatory entrance exam, even though it no longer matters, never receiving
an ounce of support from her husband, whose response to her success is to grow
angry and enraged, yet it’s a rare personal moment to treasure, triumphantly
expressed by the music of Chopin, Chopin-Etude no. 9 in F
minor, Op. 10 no. 9 - YouTube (2:05). Undiminished by the
stifling male repression surrounding them, the spirited independence of both
woman is relentlessly on display from the outset, their bond unbroken,
enveloped by a deep love and respect, even from afar, with both women exuding
strength in the face of weakness. The actresses are remarkably assured in
their roles, as are the secondary characters in this densely plotted, almost
dreamlike narrative that continually offers its share of surprises.
Metaphorically speaking, this Eurídíce of the Greek myths, who never found her
Orpheus (though it’s clearly in the music she loves), remains locked inside a
hellish purgatory forever, with music providing no means of escape. Guida
does develop a profound sisterly relationship with her friend Filomena, who was
there when all others abandoned her, writing in one of her many letters that
“Filomena is my mother, my father and also my sister,” leading to a curious
family encounter, a near-miss occurring on Christmas Eve, the time families
spend together, where Guida and Filomena are barred from entering a posh
restaurant, yet they briefly enter anyway at the same time Eurídíce is there
with her father, but in the rest room, with their two children mingling in the
center, mesmerized by a giant fish aquarium before exiting, a beautifully
observed scene with haunting significance. The film jumps ahead 60-years
to a final coda, with Eurídíce transformed into the great Brazilian acting
legend Fernanda Montenegro at 89-years of age, alone in her thoughts,
surrounded by family and friends, becoming a heartbreaking sequence with a
cleverly seductive finale that thoroughly encapsulates the depth of discovery
in this extraordinary film.
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