122 Invincible

[MichaelB]

(Werner Herzog, 2001)
Release date: 19 July 2021
Limited Edition Blu-ray (UK Blu-ray premiere)

Pre-order here

Invincible was the first dramatic work by Werner Herzog in a decade. He assembled a typically eclectic cast – including Tim Roth (Meantime), Udo Kier (Exposé) and two-time World’s Strongest Man Jouko Ahola – and blended the lives of three equally eclectic real-life figures – Jewish strongman Zishe Breitbart, Austrian clairvoyant Erik Jan Hanussen, and German chief of police Count Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff – to blend fact and fiction in his typically idiosyncratic way. This Indicator Blu-ray edition presents the film in a new restoration from a 4K scan with both its English and German soundtracks.


INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 2K restoration from a 4K scan
• Original English and German soundtracks, available in 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo
• Audio commentary with director Werner Herzog, in German with optional, newly translated English subtitles (2002)
• New interview with director of photography Peter Zeitlinger (2021)
• UK theatrical trailer
• German theatrical trailer
• US theatrical trailer
• Image gallery: promotional and publicity material
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
• Limited edition exclusive booklet with a new essay by Jason Wood, archival articles and interviews, an overview of contemporary critical responses, and film credits
• UK premiere on Blu-ray
• Limited edition of 3,000 copies
• Extras subject to change

#PHILTD122
BBFC cert: 12
REGION B
EAN: 5037899071786

[MichaelB]

To answer one obvious question, the film's original language is unambiguously English, and the German soundtrack is a dub - but it was made available to us and it's Herzog's native language, so there seemed to be no good reason for not including it. I don't know if the German-speaking actors dubbed themselves, but it has to be a reasonably safe bet.

[rapta]

Excellent, thanks to Indicator for resurrecting a lesser-seen Herzog. Being one of my all-time favourite directors, I can't really pass on this one. Also nice to see 122 spine number filled in. Hope this bodes well for more Film4 titles eventually (The Straight Story, Ghost Dog or Brother would be a dream).

[Aunt Peg]

I already have the French edition from a few years ago so I won't double-dip in this case, though I highly recommend the film to anybody that doesn't already have a copy. Watched my disc recently for the first time since I saw the film and it holds up very well.

[knives]

I don’t really like the film, but as a teen I saw it seemingly millions of times because it was one of the few discs we had.

[MichaelB]

To answer one obvious question, the film's original language is unambiguously English, and the German soundtrack is a dub - but it was made available to us and it's Herzog's native language, so there seemed to be no good reason for not including it. I don't know if the German-speaking actors dubbed themselves, but it has to be a reasonably safe bet.

Having now overseen the subtitling of both the English and the German tracks, I'd say that the latter is well worth sampling - although English is unquestionably the film's native language (I can't recall a single moment where the lipsync doesn't make this clear), I actually found that Jouku Ahola and Anna Gourari's performances felt more convincing in German, very possibly because they were (presumably) dubbed by professional actors while they were cast for reasons other than being able to act convincingly in English (real-life champion strongman Ahola is Finnish, concert pianist Gourari is Russian, and both have a hefty amount of screen time - especially Ahola, who's the de facto lead regardless of billing order).

Although Tim Roth comes across better in English (unsurprisingly) - so, as ever in these situations, it's swings and roundabouts.

[MichaelB]

Final specs:

[MichaelB]

Invincibeaver.

[MichaelB]

CineOutsider.