Sightlines · reception

How Invisible Life was received

2019 · Karim Aïnouz · Invisible Life on Sightlines

The arc

It premiered at Cannes 2019 to raves and took the top prize in Un Certain Regard, but arriving in the stacked miracle-year of Parasite, Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Bacurau, it got a little buried — since then it's quietly become a word-of-mouth favorite passed between cinephiles as one of 2019's great overlooked films.

What’s debated

The perennial fight is Brazil's 2019 Oscar choice: it was picked as the country's submission over fellow Cannes winner Bacurau — and then missed the Academy shortlist anyway, which fans still call a snub.

Its footprint

Aïnouz's own label for it — a 'tropical melodrama' — stuck, and the phrase now follows the film everywhere; among fans it circulates mostly as a dare: the movie guaranteed to wreck you, with Fernanda Montenegro's appearance routinely cited as one of the most devastating stretches of recent cinema.

Where it stands

A certified Letterboxd weepie — beloved, four-star-heavy, and increasingly a 'you must see this' entry in the modern melodrama canon.

Did you know? Brazilian screen legend Fernanda Montenegro — the Oscar-nominated star of Central Station — appears in the film, and Brazil chose it over Bacurau as its official entry for the 2020 Best International Feature Oscar.