| Throughout his long and varied career, director Werner Herzog has often taken an unorthodox approach to casting. He has directed dwarves (Even Dwarves Started Small), schizophrenics (The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Stroszek), lunatics (five films with Klaus Kinski) and people under hypnosis (Heart of Glass). But Invincible, his first fiction feature since 1988’s Cobra Verde, might mark the first time Herzog has worked with an actor apparently made of wood.
To tell the fact-based story of 1930s Polish strongman Zishe Breitbart, Herzog has recruited first-time actor Jouko Ahola, the winner of numerous World’s Strongest Man competitions. Though obviously built right for the part, Ahola’s beginner status as an actor is evident in almost every frame.
The film starts quite well in the rustic village where Zishe is a humble blacksmith, the beloved son of devout Jewish parents. After easily defeating a circus strongman for a cash prize, Zishe catches the attention of a German impresario who wants him to come to Berlin. Believing God has given him his extraordinary strength for a purpose, Zishe leaves his family for the big city, where he’s employed by Hanussen (the reliably intense Tim Roth), a self-proclaimed clairvoyant who runs an opulent nightclub with live entertainment.
Zishe is forced by Hanussen to perform his feats of strength as Siegfried, a Teutonic hero in line with the tastes of his Nazi clientele. One night, Zishe proclaims his Jewishness from the stage and provokes a commotion. Enraged at first, Hanussen notices the increase in Jewish patrons in his club and allows Zishe to remain as a performer. In the increasingly anti-Semitic atmosphere of pre-war Germany, Zishe becomes convinced God has chosen him as protector of his people.
It’s almost impossible to interpret Invincible as anything but a fable that pits Zishe’s natural strength and pride against Hanussen’s deceit, opportunism and power-mongering. Zishe may be invincible, but Ahola plays him as insensate, as though Herzog wanted an empty receptacle in which to pour his musings on faith, destiny and myth. An actor might have imbued these weighty concerns with human qualities and motives, but Ahola looks like he’s waiting for someone to tell him what to do.
The script is as awkward as the star, full of poorly timed political tirades and explanations that make things a little too plain. The "romantic" subplot, where Zishe expresses admiration for club musician Marta (Anna Gourari, a concert pianist who has also never acted before), is under-realized, reducing it to a distressed-damsel scenario.
There are, inevitably, moments of the film that look rather nice – the opening scenes in Zishe’s village, a seance room lined with tanks full of luminous jellyfish in Hanussen’s club, and the small-scale but effective period detail in general.
What’s missing is an emotional point of entry – a way to feel something for the hulking man up on the screen and the people with whom he comes in contact. Herzog may be aspiring to something greater than specific human characters, but the question is whether he picked the right people for the job. |
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