Die Unsichtbaren

A German docudrama; A story about young Jewish people who, with ingenuity and emotional strength, and at great risk to themselves, manage to evade Nazi authorities between 1943 and 1945. The film seamlessly combines interviews with live action in an effective way. Technically, it is well-produced too. Although there are some establishing shots between sequences that look a bit amateurish, all in all it is an absorbing story, a true story.

"The Invisibles" is a sanitized version of what could have been an important film about Jews in Berlin who stayed behind and blended in with the rest of the Berliners during WWII. We are told approx. 7,000 Jews evaded capture but that only 1,500 survived to the end of the war. This picture is handsomely produced but is a bloodless rendition of what must have been the case at the time. No violent encounters, no shootings and no sense of the scope of the matter.

The semi-documentary style is distracting, as the actors portray some of the survivors, who are interspersed with the story. Continuity is the casualty as the narrative is repeatedly interrupted to interview those survivors again and again. Well done film that needed some Hollywood 'punch' and some added tension to avoid onscreen blandness.

A wonderful documentary- drama. These men and women tell their story perfectly. You feel like you are there with them along their monstrous but ultimately successful journey into And out of hell On earth......

One reviewer here asks how much more drama can be "squeezed" from this "event". I would answer an infinite amount. There will never be too much that can be said or portrayed about the largest act of genocide, torture and madness. To the already copious number of films on the subject, comes The Invisibles, a docudrama, so labeled with names of the two genres that combine successfully to make up this film. I thought the combination worked extremely well. Having the actual photographic footage of Berlin during the war gave the film an aura of authenticity that enhanced it. Also, the interviewing of the survivors, combined with enactments of what they were reporting, also worked extremely well. In fact, seeing and listening to them made watching the film more bearable for me as I knew they avoided the horrific fate that most of their compatriots didn't. The only reason I rated The Invisibles a 9 and not a 10 was because in a couple of instances I experienced some confusion, mainly about who was who. I think there could have been a bit more clarity in this area. Other than that, the world now has another documentation of something that you'd think happens only in nightmares.

Interesting film telling the story of these terrible times from another perspective, with the heroes being the German people who risked their lives to help many young Jews hide underground in World War 2