By the prick of a nail the horse was lost: Not quite Invincible
Written: Sep 11 '08 (Updated Sep 11 '08)
Product Rating:
Pros: Excellent settings, a plot moving well enough, fresh faces in actors, wonderful Max Raabe
Cons:
Stilted acting, poor English, inaccuracy of plot, slowness
The Bottom Line: Watch it for the stetl setting and 1930's atmosphere. Max Raabe and his Palast Orchester are marvelous. Disappointing yet somehow still interesting enough!
This story will attract those interested in pre-Nazi Germany and Poland, because it is based on a true strongman of the times. In this film by Werner Herzog, the Polish Jewish peasant/blacksmith Zishe Breitbart is spotted at a travelling circus, brought to Berlin to work onstage as a strongman, to great success. He returns to his Polish stetl to warn his people of his premonitions, that they must prepare for a big disaster coming from Germany. He warns them that they must become strong, as he is, and the male members of his community, hunched in an old wooden house around a table, with long beards and so on typical of the Hasidim, look at him with disbelief. They believe the Polish borders are secure, etc.
It is rather unbelievable - and that is because Herzog did not portray the truth precisely.
In reality, Siegmund "Zishe" Breitbar, born 1883 in an Eastern Polish Jewish stetl, did become a blacksmith, as most of his male relatives were. His strength was remarkable since boyhood - he soon found more lucrative work with a German travelling circus, where he presumably learned German, in the 1920's. He performed quite astounding feats of strength, which urged the 1920's Berlin Jews to some kind of hope, that one of their own could have such strength, their new "Samsun". He started his own series of bodybuilding gymnasiums, published a book on bodybuilding exercises, and became convinced that the Zionist movement, to move his Jewish Ashkenazis to Palestine, was the only hope for them. In order to become farmers in their new homeland, they would have to become physically strong, something their lives had never stressed in Europe.
This small point may clarify for viewers the oddity of his standing in the middle of a marketday, demanding that the crowd comes round to hear him, pleading with them to "become strong like me". Most of the stetle males seem to be elderly and, if younger, thin and bookish, as indeed they were. Females do not even approach, as befitted their status in that culture and time. With a bit of reading, it became clear that he urged strength not to old male Jews with white beards, but to the young men and women of the Zionist movement, who were training to become farmers in Palestine, on model farms.
But I digress in digging into the truth. Let us consider this film.
First of all, for a professional director to come out with such a stilted collection of actors as these is quite a surprise. One almost could think that either they had done no rehearsals, or had been recruited from a local high school musical. In fact, Herzog did hire only amateurs, excluding Tim Roth, who plays an Occultist, the man in the black cape on the DVD cover.
Juko Ahola is a Finnish bodybuilder, speaking English very much as Arnold Schwarzenegger did as Conan the Barbarian. He plays "SAMSUN" in this fim, with a rippling white body and Teutonic face. His extremely affected speech is hard to listen to, especially the frequent "I mean...'s". The dialogues are excrutiatingly stiff. Juko may indeed be a huge and handsome strongman, but acting? Give it up, Juko! Perhaps you could become President of Finland instead?
None of the immediate family of Samsun/Zishe looks in the least Jewish, save the father, Herr Breitbart. It turns out that it is a real-life relative, a cousin, of the deceased Siegmund Breitbart.
The impressive stetl setting is the city of Kuldiga (Goldingen) near Riga, Latvia, perfectly preserved as an 1800's town, with its Jewish section intact. Herzog found this location, a rare gem in modern Europe (hip-hurrah for the Soviets who let things just rot in peace!), and I must say, it is the best part of the movie, showing truly how people were housed.
Most will find this film long and dull, with the amateur actors speaking English incorrectly.
The biggest thrill will be seeing Max Raabe and his Palast Orchester, a fabulous group in Berlin today, performing some of the original 1920's and 1930's songs. Check him out on Youtube - and you will see why I rented this film. He plays the MC at the Palast des Occultisten, the Occultist's Palace, in 1930's Berlin, perfectly suave in his dinner jacket.
Nazi young men who frequent the Palast, dressed in early brownshirt outfits, look just as young German men ought to, rather than the motley American mix.
The film's final end shows our Samsun dying of an infected wound, two days before Hitler's election, in 1933. The reality was almost the same, but critically different in timing: the real Siegmund/Zishe was performing a routine act of pounding in railroad nails into a 1" board, some rust on the nail pierced the skin on his leg as it came through. Bloodpoisoning could not be stopped; both legs were amputated in a series of 10 operations. He lasted 8 weeks in the hospital and died in 1925, long before Nazis had gained any real notoriety in Berlin. So in reality, the true story of Zishe Breitbart was a Zionist preacher, not an anti-Nazi, as they had hardly gained enough strength yet to be a great worry.
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