I saw Invincible last night, in the presence of Werner Herzog who
had a chat with Roger Ebert after the screening. Herzog told us
that the real Ziche died in 1926 (although it was actually 1925)
whereas in the movie he dies "two days before Hitler comes to
power" and that he had taken certain liberties writing the script. In
an article on the net I also read that Ziche and Hanussen most
likely never met. Bringing these two facts together makes me
reject this movie as anything close to good because what it does
really is distort history. And unfortunately what people will
remember is the movie--nobody is going to look Ziche and
Hanussen up when they can find them together in a movie that
claims to be based on a true story. I feel cheated by Herzog because of this deliberate reconstruction
of events, especially when he included in his opening credits that
this is based on a real story. Whose story are we talking about?
The real Ziche apparently toured Europe and the US in the
twenties, but in the movie he is fit to be nothing more than the
village idiot. He is willing to pass as Sigfried until his little brother
cries when he sees him dressed that way and says "you've
changed." So that gives Ziche initiative to tell the crowd that he
was not Sigfried but the new Samson. He wouldn't have thought of
it by himself. This little brother, Benjamin, is moreover one of the
most annoying things I have ever seen on a screen. His voice, his
wisdom, his squeaking, his convictions of who he is and who his
brother is and should be... everything about him was plain
annoying. Another thing that really annoyed me was the fact that Invincible
was in English. I don't know if Herzog has made any other movies
in English, but this one, out of all, should not have been in English.
Especially with all those accents that made it hard to understand
what each character was saying. Invincible would have been so
much richer if it were in German and Yiddish or Polish. Instead
everyone spoke English with weird accents except Tim Roth (but
all the signs and newspapers were in German, Polish, and
Hebrew). Roth was good (not great) but he didn't save the movie
by any means. 6/10
had a chat with Roger Ebert after the screening. Herzog told us
that the real Ziche died in 1926 (although it was actually 1925)
whereas in the movie he dies "two days before Hitler comes to
power" and that he had taken certain liberties writing the script. In
an article on the net I also read that Ziche and Hanussen most
likely never met. Bringing these two facts together makes me
reject this movie as anything close to good because what it does
really is distort history. And unfortunately what people will
remember is the movie--nobody is going to look Ziche and
Hanussen up when they can find them together in a movie that
claims to be based on a true story. I feel cheated by Herzog because of this deliberate reconstruction
of events, especially when he included in his opening credits that
this is based on a real story. Whose story are we talking about?
The real Ziche apparently toured Europe and the US in the
twenties, but in the movie he is fit to be nothing more than the
village idiot. He is willing to pass as Sigfried until his little brother
cries when he sees him dressed that way and says "you've
changed." So that gives Ziche initiative to tell the crowd that he
was not Sigfried but the new Samson. He wouldn't have thought of
it by himself. This little brother, Benjamin, is moreover one of the
most annoying things I have ever seen on a screen. His voice, his
wisdom, his squeaking, his convictions of who he is and who his
brother is and should be... everything about him was plain
annoying. Another thing that really annoyed me was the fact that Invincible
was in English. I don't know if Herzog has made any other movies
in English, but this one, out of all, should not have been in English.
Especially with all those accents that made it hard to understand
what each character was saying. Invincible would have been so
much richer if it were in German and Yiddish or Polish. Instead
everyone spoke English with weird accents except Tim Roth (but
all the signs and newspapers were in German, Polish, and
Hebrew). Roth was good (not great) but he didn't save the movie
by any means. 6/10