TotalTelly.co.uk

Devoted to Popular, Cult and Retro TV

Invincible [2002] (REGION 1) (NTSC)


Our Price: £11.11 (subject to change)

Questions of identity and assimilation in Herzog's near-miss
Review date: 2006-11-21 Rating: 6 out of 10

This DVD offers 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 (in real life the two men were professional rivals), 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.


Similar Products

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Tim Roth
Anna Gourari
Max Raabe
Jouko Ahola
Jacob Wein

Creators:
Jouko Ahola (Primary Contributor)
Tim Roth (Primary Contributor)
Gary Bart (Producer)
Werner Herzog (Writer)
Christine Ruppert (Producer)
James Mitchell (Producer)
Lucki Stipetic (Producer)
Michael André (Producer)
Paul Webster (Producer)

Director(s):

Recording label: New Line Home Video
Manufacturer: New Line Home Video
EAN: 9780780642157
Binding: DVD
ISBN: 0780642155
Number of items: 1
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Colour, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC,
Release date: 2003-06-03
Universal product code (UPC): 794043623929
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Region code: 1
Running time: 133 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2001
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: English (Subtitled)

Add to Cart

© 2006 Darren Hester, DesignsByDarren.com, Some Rights Reserved.
Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional