The Visibility of the Invisible

Directed by Luciana Kaplan, The Invisible Contract is a production with many layers. In this feature film, it is possible to find something rare in cinema, which is the perfect balance between discursive and technical quality. It is common for documentary filmmakers to focus too much on a theme and rely solely on good characters and stories, while creativity and cinematographic tools are left aside. Sometimes more inspired directors use multiple audiovisual resources but do not investigate their theme in a deep way.

The strength of Kaplan’s work lies in her poetic perspective on the harsh realities of cleaning professionals in Mexico. Humanity is put on screen and the audience is faced with the possibility of paying attention to those who are constantly made invisible. During interviews, the women are centered, in tight shots. By contrast, when we follow their work routines, they are found in the corner of the screen, in more open frames.

The sound design and mixing – provided by Lena Esquenazi and Antonio Porem Pires, respectively – heighten the film’s atmosphere through diegetic and extradiegetic sound logic. The noises of the city, the cleaning service, the wind carrying trash, blend with Alejandro Castaños’ original music and other softer sounds. The doc reveals a society that excludes these professionals, denying them basic work rights.

People do not look at them in the eye, thank them, or even greet them, for doing something so arduous and fundamental, which is the cleaning of subways, airports, cinemas, streets – of any and all public spaces. The filmmakers convey care for their characters progressively. As the plot advances, these women are increasingly protected by the film’s discourse, which highlights the Mexican government’s disregard for these employees and the corrupt, perfidious, and irresponsible system of outsourced companies it oversees.

It is in the halls of power that the real dirt lies: the more the audience watches the film’s subject clean, the more thoughts like this are formed. Women scrub and organize without stopping, while those who hurt them and act maliciously make things dirty again. And it is in the balance of visual and sound elements that reflections and impacts are brought about.

The most intense stories are mixed with moments of observation from these women, while slow, soft, and melancholic melodies are set into motion. A significant example is when we hear Aurora’s journey. She talks about verbal attacks while cleaning the city. Parallel to this, we see how the people around her ignore her and she has to shout “excuse me” for them to make room, while she carries a heavy trash bag.

To amplify the feeling of pain and despair, the production uses high-grain, sometimes blurred photographs. This strategy can be read as ​​a distortion of reality, which is often more absurd than fantasy. Aurora is surrounded, yet she seems alone, unprotected and disrespected, as if she were untouchable because of her profession. These images and aesthetic selections show a depth of understanding from Kaplan and her team.

This concern with the interviewed is also applied when actresses are chosen to speak the story of “Claudia,” a subway employee, who is in a complete state of vulnerability. Subjected to routine of harassment and all types and unhealthy work, Claudia fears being punished by the company hired by the government to perform the subway cleaning service. Even though they are interpreters, the actresses voices adhere to the tone of the other interviewees, and the decoupage is similar. This is also a high point within the documentary’s choices because it reaffirms the state of awareness of the creative process of the film’s direction and script.

The regard for people, for social and political contexts, and for the possibilities of cinematic storytelling, is profound in The Invisible Contract. And this complex perspective of structures – be they society or cinema– also appears in the plot, which becomes entangled in what we see in the lives of these women and in the dramas they experience daily. At the film’s start, for example, a movie theatre is seen being cleaned. There is a dose of irony there, because, probably, the space that is screening the doc went through this very process before the audience entered started.

At the same time, it is as if that action was ritualistic, a material hygiene being put into practice so that the public’s mind follows that act. A certain lightness is present in the film’s first sequences. Then, with each new interview, a sense of weight accumulates and the central argument becomes increasingly intense, climaxing in the moment when the fight against the oppression and lack of compliance with the laws of the outsourced subway cleaning company is seen.

Finally, a closure of the discursive logic inserted in the film connects all the stories put on screen. Luciana Kaplan’s aptitude for storytelling is remarkable. It is not easy to find documentaries with this understanding, but this is one of the film’s highest qualitative points. It is for these reasons that The Invisible Contract is a great achievement for Mexican – perhaps global – cinema. In addition to all his refined techniques, the film’s theme is urgent and necessary.

Tying the logic that art can (and should) denounce injustice, but not forgetting that it is an artistic product, Luciana Kaplan creates an important document regarding cleaning workers in her country. However, Kaplan also has a very rich team of characters, who I will list here, to attempt, in some small way, inspired by this film, to reduce their invisibility:

• Teresa Salinas Ortega
• Elena Ordoñez Mendez
• Aurea Salgado
• Gregoria Martínez
• Laura Espinoza
• Rosalba Ramírez
• Martha Aurora Domínguez
• Juan Carlos Díaz Arias

Enoe Lopes Pontes
Edited by José Teodoro
© FIPRESCI 2024