La Femme invisible (2009)
Directed by Agathe Teyssier

Film Review

You know how it is.  One minute you're living a perfectly ordinary, humdrum existence; the next you're slipping underpants over your tights and fighting the urge to climb up the sides of high-rise buildings or go hang gliding in the night sky without a hang glider.  Of course, you try to kid yourself that it's just a passing phase, that you'll soon grow out of it with some self-help books and a few cold showers.  You consult your doctor, you get yourself a dull partner and a tedious little job, but deep down you still have that hankering for brightly coloured Lycra and imagine yourself cleaning up some faraway crime-riddled metropolis.  We know we are not alone - just look at how superheroes have grown to dominate popular culture these days.  Yet whilst the fantastic exploits of superheroes who are at ease with their superhuman powers are well documented in films, novels and comic books, the painful process of transition, from a mere mortal to a well-adjusted caped crusader, has been all but overlooked.  It is this glaring lacuna in our cultural awareness that the actress Agathe Teyssier sets out to fill with this, her first full-length film as a director.

La Femme invisible represents an important milestone in the portrayal of superheroes in cinema, one that will undoubtedly lead to a greater understanding and increased social acceptance of those with superhuman abilities. It recounts the traumatic rites of passage of an ordinary young woman as she comes to terms with the fact that she is intermittently invisible.  Like puberty, Julie Depardieu's transition to superhero status is a painful one and it takes her a while before she can work out what is happening to her.  At first, she just thinks everyone is ignoring her, but with the support of a special research team that includes the ageless Charlotte Rampling (a superhuman par excellence), Julie soon learns the truth about her condition and must make up her own mind, whether to try to live as normal a life as possible for someone who suffers from random bouts of invisibility, or else to come out of the closet and become a fully affiliated member of the superhero fraternity.  For someone who is as repressed, sensitive and lacking in confidence as Julie (you'd almost think she was the daughter of some phenomenally successful film star), her superhero awakening is a distressing experience.  Fortunately, she can learn from the mistakes of her grandmother, great grandmother and great-great grandmother, who have all had similarly unfulfilled lives. Before you know it, Lili has opted to make the most of her invisibility, having realised that it is no longer as socially unacceptable as it was in Claude Rains' day.

It is the sheer quirkiness of La Femme invisible that makes it an easy film to engage with, although it is obviously not aimed at the audience which is addicted to the CGI adventures of Spiderman, Superman, Batman and so on (for one thing, its main character is a woman).  No one who watches the film can fail to see that it is intended as a tongue-in-cheek allegory on the necessity of learning to accept one's own identity rather than timorously going with the flow and trying to conform to a stereotypical norm.  It may not be the most subtle of films but it makes its point succinctly and offers some enjoyably daft humour along the way.  Those who stay the course and are not put off by the occasional careless longueur are rewarded with some wonderfully surreal flights of fancy and a cute little coda at the end with Jeanne Balibar.

Agathe Teyssier clearly had Julie Depardieu in mind when she conceived the film - who else could play the angst-ridden proto-superwoman with such delicate irony and self-effacing charm?  And who else could get away with wearing a tight-fitting red and blue outfit as she runs across the roofs of Paris, like a multi-coloured Irma Vep?  Julie D.'s fans are in for a treat as she wraps herself in this made-to-measure vehicle for her idiosyncratic humour and acting style.  If that's not enough high grade femme power to hook you, two other acting legends - Charlotte Rampling and Micheline Dax - are drafted in to boost the film's pulling power and off-beat humour quotient by a substantial factor.  La Femme invisible is not as profound and evenly paced as it might have been had more attention been given to its script, but the originality of its concept, together with the stylish performances from its glittering ensemble of classy lasses, makes it well worth watching.  It might even change your life.  It's no crime to be a superhero.

Film Synopsis

Lili is an ordinary 30-something who suddenly realises that she has become invisible.  At first, she thought that people were simply ignoring her.  After all, she doesn't have the most intrusive of personalities, and she is never one to hog a conversation.  But when people habitually brush past her without saying a word and start urinating all over her when she is sitting on the toilet, she knows that something is wrong.  One day, she notices she is being stalked by an older woman, who introduces herself as Rose.  Realising that Lili has a special condition, Rose takes her to be examined by a team of scientists who specialise in atypical behaviours.  Lili takes their advice to try to live as ordinary a life as she can.  She starts a relationship with the dullest man on the planet and then gets a boring job as a doctor's assistant.  But it is to no avail.  Lili knows that she is different from other women and must learn to accept her invisibility if she is to live a happy and fulfilled life...