Invincible: Nature Seems Dead, and Wicked Dreams Abuse

(image courtesy Netflix)

What is the measure of a man? Is it money and power? Is it strength? Is it goodness? Or is it a man's vision and what he does about it? Werner Herzog, in Invincible, his first film in 10 years, offers no easy answers but leaves enough clues for one to decode it.

Zishe Breitbart is a simple and tender blacksmith living in a Polish village who is discovered by a Berlin talent agent when the circus comes into town and holds a strongman challenge. The talent agent convinces Zishe, against the warnings of his family, to seek his fortune in 1930's Berlin, where he becomes employed by a Erik-Jan Hanussen, a fraudulent clairvoyant who has wormed his way into the ranks of the rising Nazi party and dreams of becoming the Minister of the Occult. Zishe is cast in Hanussen's show as Siegfried, a blond-wigged Aryan strongman. Breitbart meets the woman of his dreams, Marta, a stateless pianist held in thrall and sexual slavery by Hanussen. Zishe, who is not particularly religious or political, is taught by Marta that everyone, not just the bogus Hanussen, can have visions. But rather than visions of delicate beauty that Marta has, Zishe instead dreams of a future populated by red and black crabs scurrying over a railroad tracks as a distant train approaches. And while Breitbart helps Marta realize her vision to play Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto, he has becomes haunted by his own.

When his little brother, a precocious prophet in his own right, arrives in Berlin to remind Zishe of who he is, Zishe takes off the wig and declares himself, to the boos of the Nazi audience, to be the new Samson. Thinking that he will be fired the next day, he is instead told by Hanussen that since he has attracted a new audience of Berlin Jews, he can hardly be let go. Zishe's performances though cause the Nazis to riot but emboldens the local Jews, who make him into a hero. Hanussen, meanwhile, is being groomed by Hitler to be his Minister of the Occult and spends more and more time with Goebbels and Himmler. Everything comes to a head when Zishe calls Hanussen out as a fraud in front of his Nazi friends. The results are unexpected as the tables get turned on Hanussen when his own heritage is revealed.

The film opens with scenes of a small marketplace where goods are measured and axes are sharpened. Benjamin tells Zishe a story about a Prince who thought he was a rooster and was only saved when a sage convinced him to eat at the table like a man but to "never forget that he was a rooster." Zishe's father also warns him to not forget who he is. But who is he? Zishe cannot answer this at first except to tell Benjamin that "I am what I am" - this is prior to the scene where he rips off his wig and identifies himself as the new Samson. After Hanussen is dealt with by the Nazis, Zishe appends his identify as not just the New Samson but the Protector of his People and returns to the village to prepare them against the coming Nazi tide. But his people reject his vision and ask that he prove his strength before they follow him. Unfortunately for Zishe, this last act as a strongman leads his death and, tragically, the death of his people, who we are to assume will be swept into the coming Holocaust.

Very loosely based on the true story, Herzog uses the notion of a New Samson and his ultimate failure at saving his people to express a profoundly negative view of the world and to resurrect his common motif of failed dreams. But he doesn't recommend not pursuing these dreams -- certainly that is the story of his life -- but also not to give great hope that you will succeed. As a counterpoint, he offers the emptiness of Hanussen's view of a world in which there is no future, "just a state of things and events" where "man hurries past". In the end, Herzog offers two final scenes on Zishe's deathbed. In the first, Zishe, looks out the window at his little sister who stares fondly at Zishe from his hospital window suggesting the sad reality of the present. Earlier in the film, she finds the Passover bread for her parents and suggests a price. The price of the present is that Zishe may be remembered and that is all. But then, Herzog offers a ray of hope. Zishe's final dream is back to his nightmare landscape of red and black crabs but now he is carrying his brother Benjamin over the crabs and then let's him go over a seaside cliff. Looking up at the boy floating away Zishe says, "Father. Benjamin is flying..." Benjamin, who has earlier determined that people like Hanussen are like "shopkeepers with empty shelves - you have nothing to offer us" has kept his faith in Zishe who has, as Benjamin earlier counseled, remembered who he was. In return, we are given hope that Benjamin will heeds his brother's vision and find a way to survive the hordes of red and black crabs, the Nazi scourge. Like Zishe helping Marta achieve her beautiful but seemingly trivial vision, Benjamin, with his faith in Zishe, ultimately helps Zishe realize his and understand that a man's (or woman's) visions may still be great even if their final effect is seemingly small.

Additional Notes: Tim Roth turns in one of his finest performances as Hanussen, his face at times appearing almost inhuman as he mouths his love for Hitler and the godless future that it promises. The child who plays young Benjamin is also a stand-out as all too often these parts are wrecked by annoyingly bad child actors. Jouko Ahola recalls a gentler early Schwarzenegger (and has similar self-conscious acting chops), though it is doubtful, with his unconventional looks that we will see him again in a role of this magnitude. Herzog's film was maligned by the critics as too long and boring but it deserves a second look in DVD form (even if the extras here are pretty disappointing) where one can go back over previous scenes.

Links: Werner Herzog site
Rotten Tomatoes Invincible page
Imdb.com Invincible page
A tribute to the real Breitbart