Invincible

No director has more fascinating stories to tell than Werner Herzog. This one is about a Jewish blacksmith who finds his way from his village in Poland into a German propaganda show at a Berlin theatre which features a grim but locally beloved hypnotist, who claims he has seen into the future of Germany. The year is 1932, Hitler has yet to come to power.

For about fifty minutes, Herzog is able to keep the viewer in his/her seat. He stages a very eccentric show which at times allows for audience participation. During a hypnotism scene, Herzog has chosen the camera angle to be a P.O.V. of the volunteer. Tim Roth faces the camera, and as he starts to work his magic, it is us the viewers who are being hypnotized. But while the show goes on, the spectacle disappears. Invincible looses direction and starts becoming draggy quite quickly. Tim Roth's character is presented to us with so much flair and presentation that we are led to believe that the story is heading more in his direction, but it doesn't. Invincible might have worked better if the movie was about him. The last section of the film is clunky and overlong, and it feels like another movie. When looked at in its entirety, Invincible is almost a docu/drama. Some parts are very interesting but, it lacks important cinematic ingredients; the most important of which is structure.

Invincible could use a major reworking. It is clumsy in direction, unable to generate much emotion, and does not have much to say. This is NOT one of Herzog's more impressive works

Zishe is a Jew living in Poland and working with his family as a blacksmith. When a fight breaks out in a local restaurant, Zishe uses his impressive strength to fend off his attackers but finds himself facing a bill for the damage. To make the money to cover the cost, Zishe enters a local circus to challenge the resident strongman. Easily winning, he draws the attention of a talent scout who offers him the chance for more work in Germany. Despite the reservations of his parents, Zishe travels to Berlin where he joins the high-class show of mystic Hanussen. Playing to mostly film stars and members of the ascending Nazi party, Zishe plays the role of an Aryan strongman. Initially happy to do so, the deception and denial of self gradually eats at him as he performs on stage.

I may not be the most cine-literate person in the world but I know enough to give any film from Werner Herzog a try to see what happens. With this film I was interested from the very start as it throws up an interesting "true" story that I had never heard before. It opens well but it only manages to hang together until the middle of the film, at which point the direction of the story starts to badly waver and, with a mostly amateur cast and some clunky dialogue, it cannot do anything to really turn it around. After a while it does become dull and rather aimless which was a shame given the potential that it showed early on. The problems of narrative will probably worry Herzog's fans less than the casual viewer though but what will surprise them is how visually ordinary it all is. It all looks good and has some nice use of locations but generally it lacks imagination or the flair for the unusual, with only the out-of-place use of the crabs sticking in the mind as an image.

The cast are mixed, with some good performances and some terrible ones. Ahola falls somewhere in the middle; he is not the most expressive man in the world but he has a good presence and his gentle strongman performance works for the majority – it is only in the latter stages where more is asked of him where he comes up wanting. Roth is impressive of course and he does add a much needed professionalism into the film when given the chance. The rest of the cast are mostly average at best – not a major problem but few people will defend the bland and flat deliveries of people like Gourari and Wein – both of whom come over as if they would struggle to read a traffic sign in a convincing manner.

Overall this is an OK film at best – starting with potential but fading away long before the end. The performances are mostly average but what is more surprising is that Herzog doesn't really make the film his own – some of it looks interesting but it lacks the visual style that I had hoped for and it doesn't offer a great deal in its place.

The great Werner Herzog uses grandly designed set pieces to deliver a foreboding period piece about the nature of facism in pre-WW2 Berlin. The focus of the story revolves around the opposing philosophies of the sinister, renowned clairvoyant Hanussen, and one of his performers, a naive strongman, lured off the farm to make his fortune in the big city. Needless to say, both of these powerful characters provide the symbolic thrust of Herzog's visionary statement, and he presents them as extreme opposites. Roth really delivers as a refined cynic, while real-life strongman Ahola is a childlike brute, an amateur hero challenging the authority of a professional villain. While parts of the picture are heavy-handed and obvious, it has a refreshing, unsentimental neutrality about it's subject matter, and it's mise-en-scene pleasures are many. My favorite scene follows our hero on his way to Berlin: he's picked up by a couple of farmers, one of them unable to control wild outbursts of laughter as he listens to the naive strongman tell about his dreams. A worthy film in the Herzog repertoire and interesting enough even for non-enthusiasts.

I just saw this touching movie at the Stockholm Film Festival, and I have to say Herzog is still as poignant, charming and direct in his storytelling as ever. Not afraid to cast people who just have pure feelings, no plastic acting-by-the-book moves and more than one and a half expressions on their faces.

The frame of the story is a little jewish village in Poland in 1932, where a big family lives a poor but happy life. The eldest and the youngest sons, Zishe and Benjamin, mocked by some people as the thick and the thin, lead us through thick and thin of their lives. Based on a true story, the legend of the Invincible Zishe Breitbart, played bravely and somewhat charmingly naive by Jouko Ahola (the 1997 and 1999 strongest man), still is told among the jewish people. A man who accepted his physical strength as the gift of God, and thereby felt obliged to define his goal by that call. When he gets hired at a varieté in Berlin, he finds himself confronted with the Nazis, his strange employer Jan Hanussen, played by the impressive Tim Roth, who wants to sell him off as Siegfried, a blond, germanic hero who can even lift an elephant. It is obvious that Zishe has to decide whether he wants to deny his identity or rather become a Samson and fight for who he is. A touch of romance is added by the real life concert pianist Anna Gourari, who is almost over-acting, almost resembling a silent movie actress.

A very international, very special cast. Told in a simple, poetic and beautifully photographed way, Herzog manages to make you overlook the only downside of the whole movie: the bad language, german spiced english.

For people who care more about the persons than the action, this movie comes highly recommended.

Werner Herzog has always been one of my favorite filmmakers and it was hard to keep up with him when I joined the military so this was the first film of his I have seen in a theater since "Fitzcarraldo". I did like this film but its clearly not one of his best. As I watched this film I could not help but think of the other actors Herzog has used in the past and how they could be cast in this film. Of course Tim Roth would have had Klaus Kinski in his role. Eva Mattes would be Marta who's played by Anna Gourari and how many times has Herzog used a non actor in the lead? The cinematography is terrific and the period is beautifully detailed. The music is by Hans Zimmer and he is a legend but his score doesn't evoke the same haunting sounds that Popol Vuh did. I didn't mind the fact that Jouko Ahola as Zishe cannot act. He really isn't suppose to. Herzog is going for a more realistic response to the complexities of what is going on around him. Herzog has done this before with Bruno S. Tim Roth is excellent and I also liked the charm of Anna Gourari. And its always good to see Udo Kier! This film is certainly not up to "Aguirre" or "Nosferatu" or "Fitzcarraldo" but it is better than "Kaspar Hauser". Not great but its pure Herzog.