Invincible (2001)

Director:

Werner Herzog

Writer (WGA):

Werner Herzog (written by)

Release Date:

2 December 2001 (Hungary)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A Jewish strongman performs in Berlin as the blond Aryan hero Siegfried.

Plot Keywords:

Restaurant | Heinrich Himmler | Homesickness | Hospital | Fight

Cast

Tim Roth	...	Hersche Steinschneider alias Erik Jan Hanussen
Jouko Ahola	...	Zishe Breitbart
Anna Gourari	...	Marta Farra
Max Raabe	...	Master of Ceremonies
Jacob Wein	...	Benjamin Breitbart
Gustav-Peter Wöhler	...	Alfred Landwehr (as Gustav Peter Woehler)
Udo Kier	...	Count Helldorf
Herbert Golder	...	Rabbi Edelmann
Gary Bart	...	Yitzak Breitbart
Renate Krößner	...	Mother Breitbart
Ben-Tzion Hershberg	...	Gershon
Rebecca Wein	...	Rebecca
Raphael Wein	...	Raphael
Daniel Wein	...	Daniel
Chana Wein	...	Chana

Also Known As:

Unbesiegbar (Germany)
Invencible (Argentina) (festival title) (Spain) [es]
A Legyözhetetlen (Hungary) [hu]
Invincibile (Italy) [it]
Invincible (France) [fr]
Invincible, L' (Canada: French title) [fr]
Leyenda del invencible, La (Mexico) (TV title) [es]

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some sexual content and thematic elements.

Runtime:

UK:133 min | USA:133 min | Argentina:133 min (Mar del Plata Film Festival) | Italy:128 min (Venice Film Festival)

Country:

USA | UK | Germany | Ireland

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Malaysia:(Banned) | USA:PG-13 (certificate #38406) | Argentina:13 | France:U | Germany:6 | UK:12 | Singapore:PG | Canada:PG

Filming Locations:

Berlin, Germany

Company:

Werner Herzog Filmproduktion

Trivia:

An elderly woman who lived in one of the houses near where the marketplace scenes were shot, once stepped out into it with a shopping bag and, even though director Werner Herzog told her it was just a movie set, insisted on shopping and interrupted the shoot for 15 minutes.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: The film is set in 1932, prior to the Nazis coming to power in Germany, yet most of the S.S. and S.A. uniforms show insignia which the Nazis did not use until after Hitler became Chancellor in 1933.

Quotes:

Zishe Breitbart: [after outlifting and defeating a circus strongman in hand-to-hand] I can do more! I can do more!

Movie Connections:

References Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler - Ein Bild der Zeit (1922)

Soundtrack:

Arioso 'Dank sei Dir, Herr'

Questions of identity and assimilation in Herzog's underrated near-miss

I saw Werner Herzog's would-be comeback movie in it's English-language version, although it actually appears to have been shot in English as per most of the bigger budget European films. The film found little favor either with critics or at the box-office, but it still has much to commend it.

Although a significant supporting character rather than the titular lead, it's a far more accurate portrait of famed German psychic-showman-conman Erik Jan Hanussen, the 'prophet' of the Nazi Party, than Istvan Szabo's Hanussen which, like Colonel Redl, took ample liberties with the facts to make dramatic capitol albeit with less success. Herzog's film has it's historical failings to - in truth Hanussen's downfall was linked to his prediction of the Reichstag Fire and the large number of IOUs senior he collected from senior Nazi Party members, including Goebbels and Himmler. But by linking his fate to that of the Jewish strongman he promotes as the Aryan Siegfried, Herzog does offer a convincing portrait of the dilemma facing Jews in the early days of Nazi Germany: do you hide and assimilate to earn their approval or do you assert your identity all the stronger?

For Hanussen, the answer is to latch onto the rising star of the Nazi Party in the hope that money and power can insulate him (and in truth he was Hitler's personal clairvoyant and, shortly before exposed as a Jew by the communist press, in line to head the Nazi Ministry of the Occult: Hanussen privately wrote that he thought Nazi anti-Semitism was mere electioneering and that Hitler could be swayed by 'good Jews'). Ultimately he fails because underestimates the savagery and severity of the baser instincts he taps into. For the innocent strongman Zishe Breitbart, things are not so simple. As he awakens to the danger and rebels, he finds himself unable to rouse his people and is ultimately brought down by little more than a scratch. Both find themselves unable to control events, merely to predict the inevitable outcome of the terrible movement of history that will allow neither assimilation nor resistance.

It's great raw material, but it's never quite there. As a film it's intriguing and Hanussen's stage act is compellingly recreated through Tim Roth's unsympathetic playing (unlike Brandauer and Szabo's version, this Hanussen is ultimately a cruel victim of his own hubris and self-deception), but Jouko Ahola is not a strong enough pair of acting shoulders as Zishe – he may be able to carry an elephant, but he can't carry the movie. His performance isn't especially bad and it's probably an accurate reflection of the real man, but there's a lack of star quality that enables Roth to walk away with the film and for his absence in the last quarter to add not just an air of futility but of 'Where do we go from here?' padding to it.

Some of the early Shtetl scenes are a little awkwardly paced, the fledgling romance doesn't really work and the script is over-reliant on the audience bringing pre-existing knowledge about the characters to the film (for example, it is never explained that Udo Kier's Count Helldorf was the infamously corrupt and perverted head of the Berlin SA who ultimately murdered Hanussen) so a non-German or less-informed audience will definitely get less out of the film. There's also a lack of context – we see very little of what is happening on the streets with much of the action confined to Hanussen's lavishly recreated Palace of the Occult. But despite it's shortfalls, it's still an intriguing film that, while it never engages the emotions, has more than enough compensations to make it well worth catching.