INVASION

A little-known classic of Latin American cinema, INVASION was the first work conceived specifically for the cinema by the great Jorge Luis Borges, in collaboration with his friend Adolfo Bioy Casares. A kind of updating of The Illiad that breathlessly morphs from police thriller to dream-like fantasy, the film is set in Aquiléa, a city that looks a lot like Buenos Aires currently under siege by sinister forces. A group of middle-aged men, led by a somewhat older man, resolve to mount resistance to the invaders. Meetings are held, maps are studied, strategies are proposed—but can the invasion really be overcome? A former assistant to Bresson here making  his feature film debut, Hugo Santiago with INVASION created a work that is lyrical, unsettling and infinitely suggestive.

“There’s no surprise why the Argentine dictatorship wanted to censor the film; the squad of defenders act like an Argentine secret police, killing the revolutionary invaders without pity. Violence fills the train yards, the stadiums and the cafes of INVASION, reflecting through a sci-fi lens the real-life threats implicit living under a dictatorship. Thankfully, this shadowy, (literally) dark film survived a brutal regime to be rediscovered today.” – Dana Reinoos, Screen Slate