A very Estonian-Heavy-Metal-Slapstick-Kung-Fu-Flying-Orthodox-Monks-Comedy kind of movie!
Rafael (Ursel Tilk) loves Black Sabbath, Kung Fu and other cool things that are forbidden in the Soviet Union of the seventies. His quest? To learn the coveted martial art. His masters? He finds them in… a monastery. As he develops his skills, a question rises. Could he be “the chosen one”?
World-premiered at Locarno this year, The Invisible Fight is yet more proof that director/alchemist Rainer Sarnet (The Idiot, 2011 and November, 2018) knows how to master a wide range of genre elements and mix them together with great ease and creativity. He delivers here a kitschy and absurdist comedy anchored in the social and political backdrop of 1970’s communism. Stop-motion wackiness, flying orthodox monks, a Heavy Metal Nic Cage look-alike lead actor, hero’s journey & sanctity, romance & rivalry, and all the tropes of a great Kung Fu Shaw Brothers classic from 1970, The Invisible Fight is all of the above and more.
