Still, the movie is not really about these issues. Sébastien Lifshitz: “Les Invisibles” is about elderly gay people who have struggled to find happiness, so I guess in some way I’m participating in the conversation. Was it your intention to contribute to the public conversation about these issues? Here are highlights from our interview with Lifshitz.į: “Les Invisibles” is being released just a few months before French lawmakers are scheduled to debate legislation that would authorise gay marriage. But in its scope and ambition (the director blends interviews, archive footage, and images of pastoral beauty), “Les Invisibles” is a notable step forward in the 44-year-old’s career. Lifshitz has made a name for himself along the margins of the French movie industry with intimate gay-themed dramas like “Come Undone” (2000) and “Wild Side” (2004).
The film avoids didacticism and sentimentality largely thanks to these bracing testimonies, peppered with wisecracks or candidly shared memories of forbidden encounters in the bedroom (or, in some cases, behind the haystacks). Rather, director Sébastien Lifshitz offers a quietly touching, gently paced glimpse at elderly French gay men and lesbians who had to grapple with their sexuality long before it became part of the national conversation.īorn before World War II, many of them in conservative, traditionally Catholic rural regions, the people profiled in “Les Invisibles” tell personal stories of love, shame, sacrifice, and hard-won pride. Timely as it is, however, "Les Invisibles" (or "The Invisible Ones") barely alludes to the hot-button issues currently dominating newspaper headlines. With a debate over a proposed law to allow gay marriage and adoption gripping France’s political class and spilling out into the country’s streets, a documentary to hit French screens this week packs a particularly topical punch.
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