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.

Bart Layton's AMERICAN ANIMALS: an original heist film w/charm, humor, suspense, sadness

When Bart Layton's The Imposter opened theatrically back in the summer of 2012, it caused a stir of sorts, mixing as it did both documentary and narrative tropes into a single very hybrid movie about identity theft, among other things. Despite a certain queasy-making factor, the movie mostly worked.

Now, six years later, Mr. Layton (shown below) is back again with another mix of narrative and documentary about a true-life tale -- the heist of some uber-valuable artwork/books by a quartet of naive-but-daring college kids. This one works even better.

AMERICAN ANIMALS (a name that doesn't really do full justice to the subject matter, while setting its audience up for something more violent/vicious than it should or could deliver) is a heist movie with heart, soul, sadness and lots of humor -- as well as the requisite amount of surprise and suspense. The ace up its (and Mr. Layton's) sleeve is that it very cleverly and successfully mixes the real people involved (a decade or more after the fact) with some very good actors who play these four kids in their college days.

The effect, rather than something startling or unbalancing, instead slowly gives additional credence to both the story and characters at hand. The fact that the real people here often contradict each other (sometimes even themselves) makes the story told seem somehow yet more truthful. (As we know by now, even eye-witnesses can get their facts wrong.) What the real people say, and how it jibes (or often doesn't) with what we see, adds welcome surprise and humor to the events, filling out these characters (the "acted" ones) with additional layers of reality and humanity.

Mr. Layton, as writer and director, also manages to include themes of class differences, economics and privilege into his scenario without ever belaboring his points. Overall, these add weight and sinew to characters and events so that we never lose sight of what's at stake, despite the ongoing fun and suspense of the heist itself.

There is also very little actual violence in the movie, and what there is is handled so well that it registers exceedingly strongly -- instead of hitting us like the repetitive and mindless violence-as-entertainment we're constantly confronted with via our super-hero and action movies. All this puts American Animals in a class by itself and makes it easy to forgive the film's occasional minor blunder -- such as placing a real character and his actor counterpart in a car together and then making so little or this that it seems merely a directorial stunt.

The cast of actors is first-rate -- Barry Keoghan (shown two and three photos above, of Dunkirk and The Killing of a Sacred Deer), Evan Peters (above, and the standout here), Jared Abrhamson (shown at bottom, center) and Blake Jenner (below) -- with each individual doing a fine job of bringing to immediate life his character, sometimes with only minimal but pungent dialog.

In the supporting cast, it is Ann Dowd who (as usual) shines brightest as the unfortunate woman in charge of what is being stolen: a cache of John James Audubon's originals! Also on view and always fun to see is Udo Kier (below, right) as a possible fence for the upcoming stolen goods.

What makes the movie especially memorable is the manner in which it captures the craziness of youth in all its dumb glory, even as it offers the adventure of a good (well, maybe bad) heist, along with the sadness involved in lives gone so wrong for such silly (but understandable) reasons. Ah, kids: They just want to be special!

From The Orchard and running a long but never boring 116 minutes, American Animals --after opening on the coasts and maybe elsewhere -- hits South Florida tomorrow, June 22. In the Miami area, look for it at MDC's Tower Theater, AMC's Aventura 24 and Sunset Place 24, CMX's Brickell City Centre, and the O Cinema, Miami Beach. In Broward Country it will play AMC's Pompano Beach 18, Fort Lauderdale's Classic Gateway Theatre, and the Regal Sawgrass. In Palm Beach Country, see it at the Living Room Theaters in Boca Raton, the Movies of Lake Worth, AMC's CityPlace 20, Cobb's Downtown at the Gardens, and AMC's Indian River 24. Wherever you live across the country, to find the theater(s) nearest you, simply click here.