Still: The Invisible Ones - Martijn Blekendaal

In The Invisible Ones**, selected for IDFA Competition for Youth Documentary, Dutch director Martijn Blekendaal sets out to create a superhero for children for whom remaining invisible has proved to be a necessity throughout their young lives. 

Blekendaal’s endeavour seems outlandish, yet is rendered even more challenging by his decision not to feature kids within the film. Instead, he has adults (who, of course, were once kids themselves) tell their remarkable stories of resilience and survival. All these folk, including two 2WW survivors who continually managed to evade the Nazis, and a Gaza refugee who ghosted his way across Europe to settle in Belgium, don't think of themselves as heroic, but they have the qualities that any superhero should have, such as imagination, perseverance, patience and will power. And an ability to remain out of sight.

The same qualities apply to Samir, who had to survive a loveless upbringing in a violent household, and kickboxer/teacher/mentor Appie for whom every defeat is a lesson. And then there is the one teenager in the film, Nathan who was completely blind from birth but who rides his bike through LA using echolocation. Unsurprisingly his favourite superhero is Batman.

As was director Blekendaal’s, who, throughout his childhood, also felt the desire to be invisible. “My reason for making The Invisible Ones is a personal one,” he said in a July 13 interview with IDFA.

“I’m adopted, and I grew up in a white environment where I always really stood out. I wanted to be invisible. Later, I realized that this desire is a ‘luxury problem’ compared to children who are forced to be invisible because they’re in hiding, being abused, or smuggled across borders.”

Blekendaal consequently developed a strong sense of empathy with kids who were having a hard time to be invisible, as well as a desire to help them. There is a difference between wanting to be invisible and having to be invisible, he reckoned. In his film he was therefore determined to seek out subjects to illustrate this.

That said, there was also a moral dimension to be taken into account. When kids are the subjects of documentaries, especially kids in troubled circumstances (“who are mistreated at home or kids who are in a war situation”) there is no knowing the effect that the process is having on them psychologically, especially when they have little agency over the decisions they are asked to take.

Which is why he decided to primarily feature adults. In the past he was told that this was counter-intuitive, but he persisted with the successful and visually striking The Man Who Looked Beyond the Horizon, which won the IDFA Special Jury Award for Children's Documentary, 2018. That film was about an artist who goes missing at sea. And there were no kids in it. “Until that moment a youth documentary was automatically associated (also by filmmakers) with a documentary about children, assuming that a youth audience can only identify with main characters of similar age,” says Blekendaal.

The Invisible Ones goes to even further age extremes, featuring two octogenarians who talk of their dire need to remain invisible as kids. In the 1940’s the irrepressible Jewish Mrs Walvisch had to hide inside a pile of hay for three days and two nights, as quiet as a mouse, while Mr Elion avoided capture (and certain transport to a concentration camp) three times, once by hiding in a baker’s bike. 

Their stories are presented in smart and satisfying counterpoint to the disparate stories of the younger subjects, both graphically and editorially, but it is the overarching theme of invisibility as a superpower that unites them all. “Every scene can have its own style, but the whole thing must be homogenous to keep it the dynamics within the storytelling,” says the director. 

“Not having a kid as main character challenged me to think about what makes a film suitable for a younger audience,” he adds. “I ended up with using a playful edit, exploring the history of (slapstick) film and having the story told by a narrator so that the younger audience can just watch the film without having to focus on subtitles.” 

Throughout the work, he continually refers to the superhero genre and sets out “to challenge the imagination by playing with the visible and invisible.” We see how creative filmmakers (both past and present) have dealt with the business of depicting invisibility, especially the little-known but quite brilliant pioneering Spanish director and special effects exponent Segundo de Chomón. Furthermore, the film includes an interactive and very fun sequence in which Blekendaal threatens to break the fourth wall…

There was, of course, another very important element to be considered in making the film, that of the audience, and especially those invisible younger teenagers who may benefit most from seeing it. “The Invisible Ones is a small gesture to kids in need,” Blekendaal signs off of his film’s core intent.

The Invisible Ones is produced by Cerutti Film.

Other Dutch short dcumentaries selected for IDFA's Youth competition are: Everything Will Be Alright by Eefje Blankevoort & Lara Aerts, A Place to Call Home by Parisa Aminolahi and Somewhere to Be by Sara Fattahi. 

For more information about IDFA 2024, click here.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund
**Film is supported by the Production Incentive