Dramatic material the driving force behind 'Invisible Front'
<b>Mini-review: "The Invisible Front"</b>
The post-World War II documentary "The Invisible Front" had everything going for it to become a riveting, bigger-than-life story.
It had a classic, tragic romance set against the backdrop of the Soviet occupation of Lithuania.
It had the classic, tragic story of three idealistic brothers who pledged to fight for the resistance.
It had the classic, tragic David vs. Goliath tale of a small band of fighters taking on a powerful, seemingly unstoppable invading force.
Yet, "The Invisible Front" settles to be a standard-issue History Channel report, narrated in typical droning, emotion-starved voice overs, accompanied by somber strings during the bleak events and by distracting, ill-fitting music during the rest.
Fortunately, the importance of the subject matter fills "The Invisible Front" with fascination and awe.
Directors Jonas Ohman and Vincas Sruoginis tell how thousands of Lithuanians formed a guerrilla movement called Forest Brothers after Soviet forces occupied Lithuania in 1944. (Soviets first occupied Lithuania in 1940 with no resistance to stop the invaders, but were supplanted by Nazi German forces.)
A handsome, charismatic architecture student named Juozas Luksa - one of three brothers in the resistance - became a leader of the Forest Brothers despite having no military training.
"The Invisible Front" offers fascinating accounts of the conflict through interviews with survivors (among them Nijole Brazenaite, who was married to Luksa only a week before CIA agents took him on a mission from which he never returned) and with Soviet commanders charged with hunting down and executing the resistance fighters.
The partisans were motivated, in part, by the erroneous beliefs that the Soviet occupation would be brief and that the United States would rescue the Baltic states.
"All the partisans firmly believed that the Americans would come and liberate us and Lithuania would be free," a witness says. "And they all died."
Once it gets going, "The Invisible Front" slaps us in the face with just how savagely the Soviets treated Lithuanians they believed to be part of the resistance, hacking their bodies into pieces and dropping body parts on city streets, hanging people upside down over ant hills until the insects cleaned corpses down to the skulls.
Yet, the filmmakers give these horrible testimonies the same weight and importance as narrated excerpts from Luksa's book, "The Forest Brothers," leaving a Lithuanian survivor to sum up the obvious: "When it came to torture, the Soviets were real professionals."
<b>"The Invisible Front" plays at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., Chicago. Not rated, but suggested for mature audiences. 86 minutes. ★ ★ ★ </b>
Note: Directors Jonas Ohman and Vincas Sruoginis will join producer Mark Johnston for audience Q&As at 7:30 p.m. both Friday, Nov. 14, and Saturday, Nov. 15, also at 1:40 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 16. Go to musicboxtheatre.com.
<i> Dann Gire's Reel Life column runs Fridays in the Daily Herald's Time out!</i>