You’ve come a long way, baby, but women are still inexplicably fighting for equality in this “man’s world.” It’s a second-class status stubbornly extending through all professions and industries, including filmmaking. And that fact adds poignancy to Karim Aïnhouz’s “Invisible Life,” his self-described melodrama about two sisters denied the pursuit of their dreams in circa 1950s Rio de Janeiro.

Like the man nailed to the cross in the famed Christ the Redeemer statue high above the Brazilian harbor, Eurídice (Carol Duarte) and Guida (Julia Stockler) Gusmão are victims of narrow-minded oppressors fearful of their “radical” ideas. Chief among them is their father, Manoel (António Fonseca), a Portuguese immigrant baker caring more about image and profits than he is the happiness of his two teenage daughters. They will do what he says, or else.

The rest I’ll leave to you; just know that circumstances will lead to Eurídice and Guida being physically separated for decades even though they live in the same city, each forever longing to be reunited, as their father and later, Eurídice’s doltish arranged husband, Antenor (Gregório Duvivier), strive to keep them apart.

The script, adapted from a Martha Batalha novel, is penned by Aïnhouz - along with Murilo Hauser and Ines Bortagaray - is presented like a fawning ode to America’s king of sudsy stories, Douglas Sirk (“All That Heaven Allows,” “Magnificent Obsession”), albeit with a significantly more feminist bent not unlike Greta Gerwig’s current hit, “Little Women.” Like the Marches, Guida and Eurídice are victims of their sexist times, pigeonholed into preordained roles of child-bearing housekeepers whose wifely duties won’t allow them to dream or aspire.

For the adventurous Guida, it’s a longing to taste all of life’s pleasures, especially her budding sexuality and the inroads her ethereal beauty provides; for Eurídice, it’s studying at a Vienna conservatory on route to becoming a famed concert pianist. But fate and a retrograde society quickly crush all, sending Guida into poverty, forced to hole up with a “retired” prostitute (Bárbara Santos) in Rio’s dodgy Estacio neighborhood, and Eurídice compelled to marry the wealthy son of her father’s chief flour supplier.

Accordingly, Aïnhouz accentuates a mood of entrapment as his film slavishly follows the trials and tribulations the sisters encounter throughout the 1950s, as unexpected pregnancies and motherhood conspire against their wants and needs. Their surroundings are de facto prisons, with the walls closing tighter as their unrequited longings are swallowed by lurking senses of duty and responsibility, every man their warden, quick to apply the brakes to all means of escape.

Enhancing that hopelessness is the choice by Aïnhouz and his chief of photography, Hélène Louvart, to bathe their film in neon highlights accentuating life’s infinite beauty, which for the sisters is left dangling like carrots just beyond their reach. It’s a metaphor extending to their unwanted estrangement, perfectly illustrated in a wrenching scene in which by chance Guida and Eurídice occupy the same restaurant at the same time, their children (cousins) at one point standing side by side, yet neither sister spies the other.

It’s a powerful moment, but it’s also akin to the coincidences and contrivances problematic with a script jumping through hoops to keep the women separated in service of a predictable tear-jerker ending. It’s 99-and-nine-tenths pure soap, but the performances by Duarte and Stockler, who really do look like sisters, never fail to save Aïnhouz from his worst instincts. They affectingly create a palpable sense of longing and resignation, while also cathartically exercising their characters’ limited powers to fight back against oppressors at home, and in Guida’s case, male co-workers at the shipyard where a lack of options leaves her no choice but to hire on as a welder.

You cheer for Guida’s sassy courage in performing what was then considered “a man’s job,” but you also despair over the fact that this isn’t via her own will. It’s out of necessity, not ambition. She’s trapped, a fact extending down to simply attempting to acquire a passport for her infant son, a document she can’t obtain without permission from the child’s long-gone, nowhere-to-be-found father. It’s positively medieval, but it’s also indicative of a male-dominated mindset that sadly remains prevalent today, especially in Latin and Middle Eastern cultures.

It also conveniently fits a bit too neatly into these #MeToo times, but it underscores an inequality to which Aïnhouz expresses his opposition with remarkable subtlety and grace. He’s not preaching, just observing, and his Cannes prizewinner is all the more powerful for it. What we see happen to the sisters is infuriating, but even more enraging is the knowledge that in many nations women continue to be denied the inalienable right to choose, be it family planning or simply scoring a driver’s license. For those women, forced to adhere to male dictates, being silenced indeed renders them invisible, making it high time they not just be seen but also heard.

Al Alexander may be reached at alexandercritica@aol.com.

“Invisible Life”
Cast includes Carol Duarte, Julia Stockler, António Fonseca and Gregório Duvivier.
(R for strong sexual content/graphic nudity and some drug use. In Portuguese with English subtitles.)
Grade: B