INVISIBLE PEOPLE

France & Germany

"An atmospheric trip to Japan in an existential and expressive film where the nightmarish butoh dance becomes the prism through which the forces of life express themselves. The hideous and the sublime meet and strange micro-connections emerge.

Bodies in white make-up in grotesque positions. Masks, robes and nightmare visions. Tense muscles in convulsive movement. Japanese Butoh dance is about as far away from the classical (i.e. Western) ideals of beauty as you can get. Butoh is an art form where the sublime and the hideous meet – and there is no middle ground. But coming into your own as a Butoh dancer is not about transgressive gestures for the sake of shock. ‘Invisible People’ is a multi-layered portrayal of the unique Japanese contemporary dance that emerged in the late 1950s and moves between rebellion, eroticism, trance and prayer. Alisa Berger’s impressive and atmospheric debut film gradually moves away from the dance itself and becomes an existential visual poem of life with all its strange micro-connections."

Text: CPH:DOX