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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
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SADDAM
HUSSEIN'S LATEST "MUST" READING IS THE SIXTH REMAKE
OF A BRITISH NOVEL
 Titles
at the beginning of The Four Feathers
tell us that in 1884 the British Empire extended over one-fourth
of the globe, that young British men were expected to fight
for their country, and that a white feather was a symbol of
cowardice. The film's director, Shekhar Kapur, may have enjoyed
portraying British arrogance and racism, but the screenplay
is the sixth film version of the century-old novel of the
same title by A.E.W. Mason. When the film begins, a love triangle
quickly emerges, with Jack Dorrance (played by Wes Bentley)
obviously disappointed when the engagement of Harry Febersham
(played by Heath Ledger) to Ethne (played by Kate Hudson)
is announced. Harry and Jack are members of the Royal Cumbrian
Regiment, a reserve unit that can be called to duty at any
time. No sooner is the engagement announced than the order
comes down that the regiment is to ship out to the Sudan,
where the Mahdi is threatening to overwhelm British interests
in the Middle East. Those who have seen Khartoum
(1966) will be already familiar with the threat, in which
a Moslem leader in the Sudan declares a jihad against British
imperialism that had the potential for uniting the entire
Moslem or at least Arab world, but The Four Feathers
spares filmviewers of the megalomaniacal motivations of the
Moslems. Harry, however, questions the need for such an adventure,
and he insists on resigning his commission. His buddies in
the regiment then send him a box containing four white feathers
with three namecards; Jack's namecard is absent. Who placed
the fourth feather in the box? Ethne, meanwhile, is unhappy
about his decision, knowing that marriage to a coward will
bring ostracism to the couple. Harry takes steps to reenlist
by approach his father, a military hero, but the latter disowns
him. Harry then decides to go to the Sudan himself, hoping
to join the regiment in some sort of unofficial capacity.
However, to make the trip from Khartoum, he pays a merchant
who is delivering slaves, male and female, along the way,
to take him to his destination, but the merchant exacts one
condition--that Harry must dress like a nomadic Arab. Later,
when the merchant is attacked by bandits and killed, Harry
nearly dies as well, but he is saved by Abou Fatma (played
by Djimon Hounsou), one of the slaves. The two then trek across
the vast desert together. While Harry tries to infiltrate
the Mahdi's army, he sends Abou to warn his regiment, but
instead the commander treats him as a spy and flogs him. During
the battle Abou is set free, but soon the entire regiment
is overwhelmed, most are taken prisoner, and the prisoners
are buried in a pit that could be called The Killing Sands.
Jack, though blinded in the battle, escapes with the help
of Harry, who does not identify himself to Jack. When Jack
returns to England, there is no word from Harry, who is presumed
dead. Jack then marries Ethne. Harry, after escaping from
the killing sands, returns to England, and a scene with Victorian
unrequited love is inevitable. As an epic, The
Four Feathers is full of action, drama, with
a love story to boot, but Americans will probably miss the
point that any invasion of an Arab country by non-Arabs is
bound to lead to disaster. The novel has doubtless been read
many times in Baghdad. MH
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