A JEWISH STRONGMAN UPSETS THE NAZIS
Directed by Werner Herzog, Invincible is a slow-moving biopic focusing on the last year in the life of Ziche Breithart (played by Jouka Ahola), a Jewish man so strong that he was called a modern-day Samson. The film begins in Eastern Poland during early 1932. Ziche and his young brother Benjamin (played by Jacob Wein) go to a restaurant. Because of Ziche’s enormous size, Polish customers taunt him for being a fat Jew until he erupts with anger and damages the restaurant. Although he wants to pay for the damages, he is only a blacksmith and has insufficient money, but the restaurant owner suggests that he could make a lot of money by successfully challenging the Hercules of a circus that happens to be in town. Not only does he defeat Hercules, who for twenty years was undefeated, but he also attracts the attention of a talent scout (played by Ben-Tzion Hershberg) from Berlin. On realizing that God must have given him incredible strength for a reason, Ziche accepts the talent scout’s invitation to earn money in Berlin. The job is to perform feats at the Occult Palace, a cabaret theater run by Hanussen (played by Tim Roth), who pretends to have extraordinary mental powers. To appear Aryan, Hanussen insists that Ziche must wear a blond wig and change his name to Siegfried. Hanussen is a devout supporter of the Nazi Party, which in turn favors the Palace with lucrative patronage. To the delight of audiences, Ziche performs various feats of strength on stage; off stage, he befriends Hanussen’s mistress Marta Farra (played by Anna Gourari), who is also a performer. One day Ziche’s mother and brother Benjamin arrive in Berlin; tears run down Benjamin’s cheeks on seeing his Aryanized brother. During his performance that evening, Ziche takes off the wig, declaring that he is Jewish and proud. Although the Nazis are displeased, the Jews of Berlin then line up for blocks to gain seats in the audience until a night when Nazis show up to rough up the Jewish patrons. Later, on a Sunday afternoon, Marta invites Ziche to join her on a boat cruise along with Hanussen as well as various Nazis and their girlfriends. When Hanussen slaps her, Ziche intervenes and defames Hanussen as a fraud. Hanussen then sues for slander, a trial in which his Jewish identity is revealed. Shortly thereafter, Ziche apologizes that he did not know about the secret of his Jewish background, but Hanussen is arrested. Ziche then returns in December 1932 to his hometown, urging fellow Jews to get strong because of the coming Nazi threat. On one occasion, he is challenged to place a long rusty nail into a board with his bare hands. When he does so, the nail penetrates his kneecap, causing a wound and illness so serious that Ziche undergoes eleven unsuccessful amputation operations, but he dies in March 1933, just two days before Hitler became chancellor. Credits at the end indicate that Ziche Breithart remains a legend. MH