Claus Räfle's moving combo of narrative and documentary, THE INVISIBLES, tracks WWII Jews hiding out -- in Berlin!

What -- yet another World War II Holocaust survival drama? Indeed, and another very good one, too. THE INVISIBLES, co-written (with Alejandra López) and directed by Claus Räfle, tells of four young Jews (out of some 1,700) who elected to go into hiding in order to remain in Berlin, Germany, during WWII, rather than joining their parents and/or other relatives deported to concentration camps and near-certain death.

Using a well-calibrated combination of documentary interviews with the four survivors (some of whom have since died), well-chosen archival footage, and a majority of dramatic narrative of these characters during their war-ridden youth, Herr Räfle (shown below) and Ms López have created a movie that grows in interest and power as it moves along.

Toggling between the two young men and two young women, as they hide with one family and then another and another, finding work, food and shelter wherever they can (at one point Ruth, played by Ruby O. Fee, shown below, and her friend are employed by a Nazi officer and his family -- who treat the girls well and never betray them) the film shows us how -- by wit, luck and the kindness of others (often decent Germans) -- they managed to survive.

This can't have been easy, and the film, though somewhat sanitized, as these tales often are, proves compelling, suspenseful, surprising and moving. Best of all, The Invisibles is full of so many little details that, as pieced together here, make these stories both believable and different enough that TrustMovies suspects the film may stick with you longer than many others of its genre, whether narrative or documentary.

In addition to young Ruth, the movie tracks the fortunes of Hanni, the pretty Jewess (played by Alice Dwyer, below) who, via a bleach job, turns visually into the perfect German dream girl and thus makes her fraught way through this wartime maze;

Cioama, a talented artist (Max Mauff, below) who uses his skills wisely and well, yet still barely escapes the tentacles of the police to the SS to even the beautiful Jewish girl who works as an informant for the Gestapo but who grasps a moment of decency regarding Cioama;

and finally Eugen (Aaron Altaras, below, the good-looking young fellow who seems to have the easiest time in hiding, becoming romantically involved with the daughter of his host family. But even this must come to a halt, eventually. Virulently anti-German Jews may have some trouble with the movie, which shows us time and again at least some of the German populace doing the decent thing. 

But, as the now-elderly survivors insist, they would not be alive except for the kindness and help of those Germans. (The real Ruth Arndt, now departed, is shown below.)

The film's slow but solid accretion of detail and character helps us get to know both these elderly survivors and their younger, "acted" selves, building eventually to a surprising and very moving conclusion.

From Greenwich Entertainment and running 110 minutes, The Invisibles opens this Friday, January 25 in New York (at Landmark 57 West and the Quad Cinema) and Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal) and will expand to cities across the country in the weeks to come. Here in South Florida, look for it at the Living Room Theater in Boca Raton beginning, Friday, February 8. Click here to check if there is an upcoming city/theater near you where the film will be playing.