by Murtada Elfadl
With a depth of feeling and lush gorgeous colors that knock the wind out of you, Invisible Life is melodrama done right. Set in Rio de Janeiro in 1950 as two inseparable sisters have different dreams. One, Euridice played by Carol Duarte, wants to become a renowned pianist. The romantic Guida (Julia Stockler) yearns for true love. They are separated by their father and forced to live apart. They take control of their separate destinies, while never giving up hope of finding each other. We follow their story with ache in our hearts but with our eyes feasting on the beauty that fills the frame.
We got a chance to speak with director Karim Aïnouz recently in New York. [This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.]
Murtada Elfadl: Congratulations. The film is amazing.
Karim Aïnouz: Thank you. Thank you. That's good to hear
One of the things that I really love about it I grew up on Egyptian movies, which are very melodramatic.
Are you Egyptian?
I'm Sudanese.
Okay, let's go. Yeah. Okay.
So this reminded me of all the movies that I loved growing up. It's very lush.The emotions are very big. It's about family, it's about women. So I wanted to ask you about that first. Melodrama is not that respected these days. Were you afraid or concerned to make a melodrama?
It's like that for me too, I was raised on melodrama. I was raised bathing in melodrama because that's the genre root of Brazilian soap operas, radio soap operas and novellas in the 50s and then that sort of led onto the soap operas of the 70s when I was growing up...
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